Ally Pally

[Philip Hindley]

Every time I see a bit of film about this place right away I think of....you've guessed it The Quatermass Experiment. I remember Nigel Kneale saying in an article once "after the performance had finished we used to go down on the terrace and look down at all the TV aerials over London, and we knew they could have all been watching us." I went here in 1996 and I marvelled at this place, the massive transmitter, inside the building which is very impressive the Palm court I think it is called. I got the same feeling I looked down over London and imagined what happened here 43 years earlier.It was scorching that day and I thought yeah this is where it all began all those summers before.

[Philip Hindley]

Same with Lime Grove studios I was up London with a few friends we had gone to see Ringo Starr in concert at Shepherds Bush, and next day I persuaded my friends to visit the site "Why whats there? , they said, bemused?I said "Oh the Beatles did some TV broadcasts from here,(crafty move) and Dr Who was done here, also Quatermass II was broadcast live from here." My friend said "Hey Phil just think all the people in those houses were just over the road from when some of these things were going on ". Yeah right I never thought of that just think someone could have seen John Robinson going in, then not long after they would be watching him in QUATERMASS II! Sadly I just missed seeing the original building it had been demolished just a couple of years earlier and was now a block of flats.

[davemachin]

I was up at Ally Pally not so long ago and from outside the building you can see right across London and beyond. Even the Crystal Palace transmitter is visible in the far distance. You do get a sense of those being pioneering times when it was possible to connect with a large general audience by means of a play or other programme.

Dave

[Simon Vaughan - Archivist APTS]

The view from the top of the tower, below the mast, is quite amazing - with a virtually uninterupted view across the whole of London!

I have been fortunate enough to have been locked in the south-east wing on a number of weekends while working in Studio A, updating displays or re-arranging the exhibits currently on display there. To wander round the south east wing having access to dressing rooms, studios and the control rooms, with no one else in the building is a very strange feeling. You can almost hear the voices of the engineers and performers seeping out of the walls at you. It doesn't take long to start imagining all sorts of things, but this history just envelopes you!

A truely magical place - if the building were in any other country it would be hailed as a national treasure as the birthplace of modern day television and would be preserved - but sadly it is being left to rot and decay! The state of the studio wing is appalling. I can post photographs if members of the forum would be interested.

[Deleted]

I'd be interested, Simon. As you say, truly shocking that our heritage of the birthplace of TV is being neglected. This situation has gone on a long time now and i'm so amazed that no one can see how significant the place is. One day people will realise. "You don't know what you've got till it's gone".

[John Wall]

Should it be a World Heritage Site ?

See this:

www.culture.gov.uk/ukwhportal/

The deadline for the tentative list for additions is 11 June 2010.

[Simon Vaughan - Archivist APTS]

Have finally managed to get photographs of the "hidden" areas of Alexandra Palace uploaded to Flickr. They can be viewed here www.flickr.com/photos/51084001@N03/sets/72157624163751987/.

They were taken a few years ago, but show you extremely well the state of the ceilings and the effect of years of water ingress from the poorly maintained roof. Fortunately the whole of the south-east wing was re-roofed about 5 years ago, so there can be no more water damage, but as you can see the most serious damage has already been done!

[Philip Hindley]

looking at the ALLY PALLY pics amazing what studio was The Quatermass Experiment transmitted from?

[Simon Vaughan - Archivist APTS]

Jun 28, 2010 12:50:38 GMT Philip Hindley said:

looking at the ALLY PALLY pics amazing what studio was The Quatermass Experiment transmitted from?

Hi Philip,

The Quatermass Experiment was transmitted live from Studio A at Alexandra Palace, using the oldest cameras the BBC had, the original Emitron, that was used when the service first began in 1936. It is for the very reason that the telerecording was abandoned after the first two episodes as these cameras gave a poor-quality picture, with areas of black and white shading across portions of the image.

It is quite amazing to try and visualise the studio set-up for this production, as they were, by modern standards, extremely small for such a large-scale production.

[Simon Vaughan - Archivist APTS]

Have just uploaded some photographs scanned from the Archive documents from Richard Greenough, who died on the 12th August. Richard was Designer for the first episode of The Quatermass Experiment and his photographs, taken as a record of his own work, make for fascinating viewing. The can be seen on this thread: missingepisodes.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=5232&page=2