Battersea and the new age of leisure
The Albert Palace, view from the lake of Battersea Park
Albert Palace map location
This year we celebrate 150 years of the Royal Albert Hall, a reminder of the legacy of the Great Exhibition of 1851. Whilst the story of the Crystal Palace that hosted the exhibition is well documented, more obscure is Battersea’s own Albert Palace, erected in 1885 facing the southern end of Battersea Park along Prince of Wales Drive.
Just like the Crystal Palace, the structure of the Albert Palace was recycled. In 1865 the Dublin International Exhibition had successfully attracted almost a million visitors to see the best of British and foreign arts, manufactured goods and raw materials. In the aftermath of the exhibition, the newly formed Albert Exhibition Palace Limited acquired the iron structure minus the masonry and shipped it from Ireland to Battersea, to be erected on the original site proposed by Prince Albert for the Crystal Palace relocation (eventually moved to Sydenham). The area had changed considerably since the 50’, and Battersea had now a successful park attracting huge numbers of visitors and ready access by road, rail and river.
Opposite the park’s lake, the Albert palace was a rather imposing iron and glass building, whilst at the rear it was faced with Portland stone recycled from the recently demolished Old Law Courts at Westminster. The long nave measured 473 ft in length, 84 ft in depth and its height was 60 ft at the crown. The Connaught Hall was intended for ‘musical entertainment of a high class’, featuring a 4,000 pipe organ, parts of it now in St Peter’s Catholic Church, Buckie in Scotland (more recycling!).
From Battersea Park Road one could access the palace's pleasure gardens with paths and flights of steps flanked by classical styled urns which led to an open air theatre. The entertainment was in typical Victorian fashion aimed at the improvement of the masses on a physical, moral and intellectual basis, yet it wasn’t long before these aspirations were lowered. One promotional venture by Liberty’s featured an Indian village, displaying artists and performers from the subcontinent, who were neither fully paid nor accommodated adequately, having to wear overcoats as the palace’s heating failed.
Perhaps the vicinity of Battersea Park and its free access contributed to the dwindling numbers of visitors and just two years later in 1887 the palace was closed. It quickly became the home of feral pigeons and its glass panels the practice target of exuberant youths and their missiles. For the next few years its skeleton rusted away until its 800 tons of ironwork were sold for scrap in 1894 for £900.
An even more extravagant but less successful venture was that of Battersea’s Dream City, devised in 1907-8, but never emerging from the drawing board. This Coney Island Dreamland styled theme park was meant to be built east of Battersea Park, on the site later used by the Metropolitan Water Works and now occupied by the Battersea Power Station. Its architect Francis Swales had worked on the Ritz and designed the frontage of Selfridges on Oxford Street.
Visitors would have been entertained with a roller-skating rink, a circus venue, exotic villages, a scenic railway and an illuminated 200 ft tower amongst other facilities. Some of the rides, read like the backdrop of a science-fiction novel, such as the submarine that would take passengers beneath the lake amongst ship wrecks, sea monsters and divers and a rollercoaster/haunted house/Jurassic Park thrilling ride, the whole site illuminated by one million light bulbs.
Although the London County Council gave the project a go ahead, it was dropped perhaps due to competition from the Franco-British Exhibition that took place in White City in 1908. Yet the powers that be did not give up on Battersea’s potential to welcome the nation for leisurely pursuits, and in 1951 Battersea Park became the venue for the Festival of Britain, the subject of my next blog!
