Burning of the Crystal Palace

[EX CUSTOM HOUSE]

 
Am I expecting too much of any Poster to remember the" Crystal Palace Fire".

One Evening coming home from a Cinema with my Grandma, we were approaching Prince Regent Lane from a side Street? going home .  I said Gran look at that great big red cloud in the sky.
We stopped and Gran said that is a big fire somewhere, bye this time it was getting bigger and brighter
also a few people started coming out of the houses and there was a smell now, drifting to-wards us.

After about half an hour I should think, it was just one mass of red and we could even see flames flickering.
It was a great sight and one I have never seen the like since. We had to go home as Grandad would wonder
where we were.  Still none the wiser what this was all about until next day when it was all over the News Papers
that Crystal Palace had been burned to the ground.
Wish I could be more precise re details but it is so long ago, I have even been reluctant to Post it but have thought
about it many times, but cannot get a clearer picture. so thought I would give it a whirl?

Louise

[MickG]

Louise. I was born in Dulwich Village and I wrote a series of historical memory items for the Dulwich Onview website run by the renown Dulwich Picture Gallery. That's the one where the painting of the Duke of Wellington was once stolen. Although the Crystal Palace burning down was before my time my mother told me about it and below is an extract from one of the articles I wrote.

As a point of interest, if you look at an aerial picture of Hyde Park, the long strip of land south of the Serpentine Lake is where the Crystal Palace was originally built. When it was dismantled and re-erected in South London the surround area also became known as Crystal Palace.

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"Although before my time, my mother related to me, the evening the Crystal Palace burned down. Even without the benefit of telephones or television, news of the fire rapidly spread throughout the neighbourhood. My mother told me of hordes of people swarming towards the Plough public house in Lordship Lane from all directions. Everyone trying to get on a tram to Crystal Palace to watch this once in a lifetime spectacle. The chance of an unexpected evening of awe and free entertainment mixed with plain natural curiosity was irresistible. My mother said when she arrived at the palace, large numbers of police were required to keep the multitudes at bay who just stood agog uttering Ooohs and Aaahs synchronised to the dying contortions of this once proud building. My mother also described it as being like the scene of the 'Burning of Atlanta' in the film 'Gone with the Wind' produced a few years later. Despite the next morning being a working day, the crowd stayed late into the night witnessing the death of this monument to a past empire."

[Bert]

Yes, Louise. I well remember the Crystal Palace fire. We were then living in Abbey Lane, Stratford. Word got around about a glow in the sky and in no time everybody was out watching and speculating about where the fire was. As you say, it wasn't until next day that we learned that it was the Crystal Palace ablaze.

Old memories such as that still still vividly pop up in my mind. Other examples are:- The General Strike (just remember): the floods, when we had to live upstairs for about three days: the airships R100 and R101 passing over Stratford: Amy Johnson, the famous solo flyer on her flight from Australia and approaching, I believe, Croydon airfield: King George V and Queen Mary being driven through Stratford on their Jubilee: Tommy Groves. Loads more, but they are all new topics (this one's about the Crystal Palace).

Bert. 

[Kathy Taylor]

Well Louise, how about that. Like you, Bert remembers seeing the blaze in the sky.

Also in Canning Town Voices, compiled by Howard Bloch, Charles Buhler states: “When Crystal Palace caught fire in 1936 we all marched up to the Iron Bridge. From there you could get a better view of Crystal Palace which would have been in the south west area. The sky was lit up and this was more or less a foretaste of what was to come later during the war”

The fire was on 30 November 1936, it started around 7.30pm. Within hours the Palace was destroyed: the glow was visible across eight counties. That night, one of the trustees, Sir Henry Buckland was walking his dog near the palace, with his daughter Crystal Buckland (named for the palace) when they noticed a red glow within. Inside, he found two of his employees fighting a small office fire that had started after an explosion in the women's cloakroom. Realising that it was a serious fire, they called the Penge fire brigade. But, even though 89 fire engines and over 400 firemen arrived they were unable to extinguish it. The fire spread quickly in the high winds that night, because it could consume the dry old timber flooring and the huge quantity of flammable materials in the building. 100,000 people came to Sydenham Hill to watch the blaze, among them Winston Churchill, who said, "This is the end of an age".

This link shows some film of the fire: http://www.beckenhamhistory.co.uk/video6.html

I was on a walk during the summer and saw the massive Crystal Palace aerial from either Trinity Buoy Wharf or the East India Basin (can’t remember which). The aerial is no longer visible from Canning Town Bridge because of the houses in between.

Kathy

[EX CUSTOM HOUSE]

Kathy I was also amazed to read posts and history re CP. Your Link was great, and after all these years and actualy seeing that distant view I had not imagined how devastating it was. Colouring at start of link was
great and about the same colouring as that sky was that very dark night.

Not having a father at home there were never any NewsPapers, and we did not have a Wireless so it stayed one big mystery realy. Seen one or two stories on the History channels, cannot recall a full story like posted to-day.

Yesterday whilst composing a rough post, I wrote 36/7, Oct./Nov as it was very cold,just leaving a warm Cinema.
And I finished by saying it was nothing like you posters witnessed during those bad years, but stopped as I did not
want to remind anyone of those dark days.
A similar blaze must have been seen when the Timber Wharf? over Canning Town by the Station was hit, and the whole river was ablaze. Mum told me bits after I returned from Evacuation.

Regards Louise.

[EX CUSTOM HOUSE]

 

  Kathy another one of my "Blips"  Sorry!

  Just hope I do not get into trouble for wasting paper (at least it is not water)

  Still do not know how that happened, when these strange things occurr I still
  realise I have not mastered this machine of mine .It has a mind of it's own at least so it seems at times.

  Louise

[EX CUSTOM HOUSE]

Hello Bert when I was making a rough yesterday of the Post re Crystal Palace, I guessed if any one would answer it would be you.   It sure was a sight, and when I first spotted it and mentioned it to Grandma it was like a pale pink haze and gradualy as we walked it got brighter but darker, Every shade of Oranges and Reds you could
think of, and the smell was what we call to-day Toxic in the still air.
 It must have been a much bigger experience from Stratford.  And like you said no one knew much
until the next day when it appeared in all newspapers and the paper boys were calling out all over the place,
Crystal Palace gone up in Flames, I went to Grans during my Dinner Hour from school and she showed me the story and pictures in her Newspaper.

My next Memory and the only one is AmyJohnson.  Grandma (same one) had sent me to the local To-bacconist
for her (Screw) excuse the expression, that was her 1d of SP Powder (Snuff) in green paper and
twisted at the top. This was gotten out of a large tin with a small tool like a Shovel, and then returned to a top shelf.  IT WAS ON HIS RADIO I heard the STORY OF AMY JOHNSON AND HE TOLD ME WHO SHE WAS AND
WHAT SHE HAD DONE.       Louise

[Bert]

I'm sorry it's "off topic", but I must go back to Amy Johnson for a minute.

Last night, after mentioning Amy Johnson in my posting, I couldn't blot out of my mind a popular song which celebrated Amy's flying exploits. Then tonight, Louise, I read your mention of Amy Johnson and back came the song battering my mind. Bashed over the wireless by Jack Hylton, Jack Payne or, perhaps, Henry Hall and their bands in those pre-war days the song was a "Top of the Pops" for those days. It had a lovely tune which plagues me but I can remember only a few words of the lyrics. I know that it started, "Amy, wonderful Amy".

Bert.

[MickG]

Bert you may be interested in this link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dsiZgRKh2k

[EX CUSTOM HOUSE]

 

Hi Bert
while typing this I am listening to Amy wonderful Amy.

I know I often have a grumble about this new"World" we are living in, but when something like
this happens it makes you think it's not all bad is it??


Louise.

[EX CUSTOM HOUSE]

MickG Apologies for delay but got rather snowed under with the responses to this very old disaster.
Know the name well, but never visited Dulwich Village and never heard of Lordship Lane.(Must have been a sight)
Am I right to think your views must have been far greater and vivid than ours in the East End.

Your Mum and all the other spectators did at least know what they were seeing, Grandma and I never had a clue.
Looking back we could not have made that Area from where we were (or could we if more adventurous)?
however so pleased I saw what I did and was able to re-call  enough to Post it.

My Gran was the sort of Lady who would say "Better be getting home" it's getting late and you have to be up for
school in the morning. (Meaning she wanted a nice cup of tea with her Libby's milk in and two sugars).

Thank you Louise.

[MickG]

Louise,

The southern end of Dulwich gives way to the hill that the Crystal Palace was built on so the view would have been quite clear. According to my mother, the news spread like wildfire, (excuse the pun), throughout the neighbourhood. My mother and father left my eldest brother who was a baby at the time in the care of my grandmother who lived with us and then walked about a mile to catch a tram at Lordship Lane which went directly to Crystal Palace. Clearly she saw the Crystal Palace burning and said there was a huge crowd also watching the event getting as near as both the radiated heat and police would allow them.

I think in those days, even a large crowd was likely to be quite well behaved than would be the case today. I guess my parents must have walked all the way home as I think the trams would have stopped running by the early hours of the morning. It's a pity we did not have digital cameras then as there would have been a lot more photographs of the event.

[EX CUSTOM HOUSE]

MickG thank you for that explanation.  Must have been a spectacular site, if only re Cameras.

When I worked in the city one of our Secretaries to a Manager (That was a real high flying job in those days.)
and did they let we juniors know it.  We were treated like servants and not allowed to say a word in defence.

She lived over at Dulwich and had a terrible time travelling in to the Office every day (About the same as to-day.)
Would she have to have walked over London Bridge to Leadenhall Street (The old Bridge of course)?
talk about this seems to come to mind. This would be 1944.

My Manager at Boyd's also lived across the Water and had the same troubles with transport. He came
in late every morning on the old 101 Bus.  This would be 1947/8
Louise