Crystal Palace Station is Needlessly Magnificent

today we're visiting one of my favorite stations Crystal Palace this is in South London on the overground and on National Rail and it's pretty magnificent one question though why the station has its ultimate Origins here in Hyde Park it was here in 1851 that the great exhibition was held this was the brainchild of Albert the prince consort it was to be a Showcase of all that was great about Britain at this time Britain was on a bit of a high it had the largest Empire in the world it was the wealthiest and most powerful Nation the great exhibition would be a celebration of all that the question was where to house it a design committee was formed to decide on the exhibition building which was a who's who of Victorian engineering William Cubit Robert Stevenson izombard Kingdom Brunel Charles Barry among others there were hundreds of designs submitted from some of the greatest architects in the world yet the winning design came from a gardener Joseph Paxton who devised an enormous glass structure as a gardener Paxton had an interest in greenhouses and had developed the techniques necessary to build an exhibition venue like this as a byproduct of his research his design met the criteria set out by the competition that it should be practical quick to build reasonably cheap and able to be disassembled it took him just two weeks to take the building from basic concept to final design after the winner had been revealed the building gained the title of the Crystal Palace which may have started out as a joke in punch magazine but quickly caught on despite press skepticism the exhibition was a huge success the Crystal Palace was more than a venue it was an exhibit in itself its design represented The Best of British Ingenuity and its manufacture represented The Best of British industry when the exhibition ended after six months a group of businessmen decided that the palace was too good to scrap and arranged to purchase and relocate it these gentlemen happened also to be directors of the London Brighton and South Coast Railway including the chairman they figured that they could not only make money off the palace itself but on transporting people to and from the venue they could literally get people coming and going so they formed the Crystal Palace company the London Brighton and South Coast let's say lbsc for short served South London so it was inevitable that the relocated Palace would end up somewhere on their patch and so it did on Sydenham Hill the relocation took two years from 1852 to 1854. but this version of The Palace was very different from the one at Hyde Park it was extensively reconfigured and augmented and the end result was a long way from Paxton's original design the Crystal Palace company were thinking big The Hope was that the palace and its surrounding Park would be a huge attraction think Victorian Disneyland so it would of course need good transport links the lbsc constructed a dedicated Branch from Sydenham the station opened in 1854. at the same time another line had been authorized the previous year the West End of London and Crystal Palace Railway in theory this was an independent line but in practice it was operated by the lbsc it ran from Wandsworth to Norwood Junction it reached Crystal Palace in 1856 and Norwood Junction in 1857. the station was Grand befitting the huge numbers of visitors the promoters expected it had three Island platforms with a roof over the terminating lines the platforms were arranged in such a way that incoming trains would have a platform on both sides enabling rapid loading and unloading of passengers now I should point out that this wasn't the only station to serve the grounds penge West was just off the Southeastern corner of the park but more impressive was the Station built by the London Chapman Dover Railway just north of the palace this opened in 1865 and was known as Crystal Palace high level while I would like to talk about that someday today is not that day the palace was indeed a huge success with displays ranging from an aquarium to a display of prehistoric animals to an early flying machine it also housed frequent shows and exhibitions and those visitors came by train Crystal Palace Saw 2 million passengers a year and not only from the lbsc the London and Northwestern Railway the Great Western Railway and the north London Railway all sent trains here via the complicated network of tracks through South London in 1875 a new station building was constructed on the road bridge over the track that's what you see today in 1894 the station was renamed Crystal Palace low level for consistency and to avoid confusion in 1905 disaster struck not here but at Charing Cross the roof over the platforms collapsed this caused such a stir in the railway world that it was decided to remove the roof at low level just in case in 1911 the lines to Crystal Palace low level were electrified which at the time was state of the art electric trams had arrived at the palace in 1905 and while these tended to be a massive pain in the backside for Railways the distance is covered by the trains meant that there wasn't a huge amount of overlap between their passengers nevertheless I do wonder whether the lbsc's decision to Electrify was influenced by their would-be rivals on the streets that's not to say that things were going super well for the railway the thing was that while the Crystal Palace had been a marvelous novelty when it was first built people grew tired of it new exhibits couldn't re-engage people's attention by the 1890s it had gone from a must-see attraction to you know all right if you're not too busy there were occasional ripples in the downward Trends such as at the 1911 Festival of Empire but by 1913 the company was bankrupt the Earl of Plymouth brought it up just in time for the first World War the palace was requisitioned by the Navy a new trust had taken over and when they returned in 1920 the site was looking rather shabby and run down they set about restoring the palace but it was all for naught in 1936 it would all come to an end the palace caught fire the exact cause is unknown but within hours despite the best efforts of over 400 firefighters the palace was destroyed the trust couldn't afford to have it rebuilt nor could they afford insurance thus ended the over 80-year history of the Crystal Palace and so in short order both the stations lost their raise on debt the high level branch limped on until 1954 when it closed the following year low level returned to its old name of Crystal Palace fortunately the old west end and Crystal Palace railway's position as a useful connecting route meant that the line would stay open and there were enough residents to justify keeping the station it became popular with train spotters as the line was often used by Excursion trains in the 1980s a new booking Hall was added based on the dearly departed Palace itself it was the overgrounds that brought new purpose to the station it was a handy place to terminate trains on the orbital route to that end platform 3 was pressed into use this had been abandoned with the decline in traffic a new platform platform 5 was built over the Old Carriage sidings the Crystal Palace style ticket Hall was demolished and the old building was fitted with a lift for accessibility purposes these days the station is pretty well served its position on the old and complicated network of South London Suburban Railways means that it's well connected even so it feels these days somewhat over engineered it's a gorgeous station I'd argue one of the prettiest in London but as compared to the Glory Days of the 1850s it feels a little well big well I do hope you enjoyed today's video if so please do leave a like and consider subscribing for more I'm planning to return to Crystal Palace at some point hopefully in the not too distant future I'd like to talk about the high level station and the palace has some other railway claims to fame that I think you'd find interesting I'd hoped to get some footage of the remains of the palace but unfortunately they were surrounded by hoardings when I went to visit so that's something else I'd like to get shots off in the meantime I would like as ever to thank my donors on Kofi and patreon and here on YouTube for your generous support you are the destination to my Branch line and I will see you all again very soon cheerio

Channel: Jago Hazzard

Views: 63,201

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Id: P_bq5lKklHA

Length: 10min 15sec (615 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 09 2023