Croydon Guardian: Local news from Croydon, New Addington, Purley, Coulsdon, South & Upper Norwood

Crystal Palace was a marvel of its age when it opened in 1854. However, after 82 years of luring millions of people to its weird and wonderful concerts and exhibitions, a devastating fire destroyed the site.

The blaze, which started shortly before 7pm, was the biggest London had seen since the 1666 Great Fire and it was visible from the English Channel.

Harry Spencer, 92, saw the glow of flames from Addiscombe Road as he walked to Mayday Hospital to see his wife and newborn daughter, Carol.

He said: "After seeing the baby I was walking back and I bumped into my brother, Bill. We both wanted to see what these flames were. We couldn't believe our eyes when we saw the Crystal Palace was on fire.

"I think the firemen were having problems getting enough water because there were lots of hoses laying flat on the floor, flapping around.

"It was an awful fire, so big. Even during the Blitz I never saw anything like it. And it kept spreading. A policeman tried to push us away when the flames got really bad but we wanted to stay and watch.

"I remember at the time there was a story going round that someone deliberately started the fire because the Germans could see it from the air. Whether that's true or not, I don't know.

"My mother took me to the Crystal Palace when I was a child. It was always a lovely day out and there's been nothing like it since."

The Crystal Palace started life as the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. After it closed in 1851, a huge project began to move the glass structure piece by piece to a new site in Sydenham.

Opening on June 10, 1854, as the world's first theme park' it quickly became known as the People's Palace.

For just a few pence, it offered a high standard of education and entertainment which had only previously been available to the financially well-off.

The attraction's popularity was maintained by the increasing numbers of shows and exhibitions - including animals, electrical, arts, photography and transport - as well the many concerts, circuses and pantomimes.

In 1868 the Palace had the first public showing of moving pictures using a zoetrope. Between 1854 and 1884 an average of two million people visited the Palace each year. As a result, another railway station was constructed, connected to the Crystal Palace by a brick-built subway, which still exists.

The Palace was frequently visited by royalty. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were regular visitors as well as Napoleon III in 1855, the Sultan of Turkey in 1867, the Khedive of Egypt in 1869, Tsar Alexander II in 1874 and the King and Queen of Greece in 1876.

The Palace's popularity started to wane at the end of the 19th century and by 1936 it had gone into liquidation.

However, it was the great fire of Novermber 30 that same year which destroyed the site. A small fire was believed to have started in an office at around 7pm. By the morning of December 1 the whole site was gone, despite the best efforts of 88 fire engines, 438 officers from four brigades and 749 police officers.

The cause was never truly established but was believed to have been an accident.

Melvyn Harrison, chairman of the Crystal Palace Foundation, said: "The Crystal Palace, as a building, was cutting edge.

There was nothing else like it in the day. A good sign of just how significant it was is the amount of cities and countries throughout the world which had a Crystal Palace' named after the original.

"The Crystal Palace blaze was the biggest fire in the capital since 1666 - the Great Fire of London. The 1666 fire and the Blitz were series of smaller fires so as a single entity the Crystal Palace fire was one of the biggest fires, we've had. The flames could be seen from the English Channel. People thought London was on fire."