Crystal Palace - Mysterious Basement

[tulse hill terry]

This might not be of much interest, but here goes . . . .


The most extremely poorly recorded area of the Palace was the basement level.

Coming across this picture again, left me puzzling about it's location.

Basement?

Roofers at Work on Exhibition House
Builders carry tiles onto the roof of a house which is under construction in Crystal Palace, for the South London Exhibition.

IMAGE:
© Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS

DATE PHOTOGRAPHED
February 18, 1935



http://pro.corbis.com/Enlargement/Enlar ... ler=search

Now this definitely the same floor as the image below, the statues are the same!



http://www.crystalpalacemuseum.org.uk/image_024.html
"Birds arriving for the ever popular Caged Bird Show - notice the railway porters assisting c.1929."

Now I always though that image was taken in the basement, there seems to be a ceiling reflecting the light back down, and that's a lot of wall.



http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/26427 ... on-Archive

November 1932

Basement surely?



http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/30882 ... on-Archive
Enid Sass 17th November 1931

And again?

[Konqi]

Didn't think the basement was that large.

[Konqi]

Is this the same area?

http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist//BHC_ ... tal+palace

[tulse hill terry]

Well I never, the very diagram that Falkor sent me privately, and when I suggested he post it on the forum for everone to see, replied "Ken Kiss might kill me." Huffy thread and that was the last we heard.

You well may be right, that the top image, was taken on the ground floor, and looking up the statues, in the north Nave perhaps, with partitions for the Crystal Palace Club in the background.

Ss to the clip, well it's made from several different takes. The beginning is taken before a very wide space, with no courts behind, the abbreviated end of the north nave?

I spotted William Calder Marshall's "Ajax Praying for Light" at 37 seconds, and that is listed as being in the south nave, but as one list was written for this period, that doesn't cover 10-15 years of possible rearrangement.

http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/im ... c482d.html

[Konqi]

I do wonder how much light got into the basement levels, I think one of the reasons there are no know photos of the inside of the aquarium is that it might have been to dark. The aquarium was also at basement level.