Alexandra Palace

Heritage listing

Details MATERIALS: cast-iron and steel columns with walls of white Huntingdon and yellow stock brick embellished with patterned red brickwork in the Italianate style. Classical mouldings and ornaments such as cornices, volutes, keystones, lions' heads etc. made of Portland cement. PLAN: the Palace covers about seven and a half acres. Symmetrical plan about a great central hall which corresponds with the central transept of the original building and runs between the north and south frontispieces that survived from that building. Flanking the great hall were an Italian garden to the west and an exhibition hall to the east, beyond them were two conservatories. The entire south front was occupied by refreshment rooms including a large banqueting hall; the corresponding spaces on the north front held a concert room and a large theatre. Most of the internal walls defining this plan survive, but the roofs have been replaced, and open areas roofed over. The concert hall and refreshment rooms have gone. The theatre auditorium to the north east and the BBC studios to the south, adapted from former refreshment rooms in 1935, survive. EXTERIOR: north elevation: Least fire-damaged area. Central frontispiece with pedimented gable and large, recessed rose window (now blocked) above entrance porch which connected to the approach from the former railway station. East and west elevations: entrance fronts and vestibules behind largely rebuilt 1980-88 following original form and reusing structural ironwork in part. Palm Court entrance, now main public entrance, to west has pedimented gable and arcaded ground floor. South elevation: central pedimented and gabled frontispiece with large recessed rose window (reinstated after fire) above entrance porch. Patterned brickwork in gable. Arch flan

From the Historic England List Entry under OGL v3.