The Crystal Palace - Relocation

Relocation

The life of the Great Exhibition was limited to six months, after which something had to be done with the building. Against the wishes of Parliamentary opponents, the edifice was erected on a property named Penge Place that had been excised from Penge Common atop Sydenham Hill. The building constructed in 1854 on Sydenham Hill, while incorporating most of the constructional parts of the Hyde Park building, was so completely different in form as to be properly considered a quite different structure – a 'Beaux-arts' form in glass and metal. The main gallery was redesigned and covered with a new barrel-vaulted roof, the central transept was greatly enlarged and made even higher, and two new transepts were added at either end of the main gallery. It was modified and enlarged so much that it extended beyond the boundary of Penge Place, which was also the boundary between Surrey and Kent. Within two years, Queen Victoria again performed an opening ceremony. On the new site the buildings housed the Crystal Palace School of Art, Science, and Literature and in the performance spaces hosted concerts, exhibits, and public entertainment. The new site was also the location of one of Charles Spurgeon's famous sermons, without amplification, before a crowd of 23,654 people on 7 October 1857. The reconstruction was recorded for posterity by Philip Henry Delamotte, and his photographs were widely disseminated in his published works.

Several localities claim to be the area to which the building was moved. The street address of the Crystal Palace was Sydenham S.E. (SE26 after 1917), but the actual building and parklands were in Penge. When built, most of the buildings were in the borough of Croydon, as were the majority of grounds, but in 1899 the county boundary was moved, transferring the entire site to Penge Urban District in Kent. The site is now within the Crystal Palace Ward of the London Borough of Bromley.

Two railway stations were opened to serve the permanent exhibition: Crystal Palace High Level (an impressive building by Edward Barry), from which a subway under the Parade led directly to the entrance, and Crystal Palace Low Level station, off Anerley Road. The Low Level Station is still in use as Crystal Palace railway station. The only remains of the High Level Station are the subway under the Parade with its Italian mosaic roofing which is a Grade II listed building.

The South Gate is served by Penge West Railway Station. For some time this station was on an atmospheric railway. This is often confused with a 550-metre pneumatic passenger railway which was exhibited at the Crystal Palace in 1864, which was known as the Crystal Palace pneumatic railway.