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Alexandra Palace Grecian statues

I may be clocking on a bit but I don't think this was a figmant of my imagination. I remember when I was quite young, there being a number of statues in a Grecian style on the outside of Ally Pally. I asked 2 of my old school friends and they also remember the same. These have long since gone ( possibly in the couple of fires there)

In 1963 the film of Jason & the Argonauts came out where statues came to life & my childhood brain wondered what would happen if the AP ones did the same?

Are there any photo's or memories of these statues

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Hugh on January 31, 2025 at 13:25

Your question would probably be best answered in detail by someone like Kirsten Forrest at the Palace. (I've invited her to comment)  In the meantime however, I can offer images from 1875, 1916 and the mid/late twentieth century that suggest your memory is not a figment of your imagination. The classical figures seem to have adorned only the central section on each side of the building's south front. (Click each photo below to enlarge it)

1. 1875

2. 1916

3. Mid-twentieth century

Permalink Reply by Shirley King on January 31, 2025 at 13:44

Thank you Hugh, the photos are very interesting as I was not aware of the roof ones. The ones I remember were at ground level.

Permalink Reply by Hugh on January 31, 2025 at 14:00

Do you remember where?

Permalink Reply by Shirley King on January 31, 2025 at 15:06

Hi Hugh, sorry to put you to all this bother. They were definitely Grecian/classical figures (full body) not urns and the like. These were on the South front and I don't think it is the power of suggestion after seeing your first photos but they were very much where your photos show but against the wall of the building under the coverway. At a guess I would say around mid 1950's

Great photo's and this may seem a daft question but were the exhibits in the monkey house stuffed or live?

Permalink Reply by Hugh on January 31, 2025 at 16:59

This might help answer your monkey house question  - from the Hornsey & Finsbury Park Journal, 15 August 1903.

Permalink Reply by Shirley King on January 31, 2025 at 19:01

Thanks Hugh, some of that made for horrendous reading, what a life for those poor creatures. The last part about the monkeys etc that were stuffed and exhibited after being killed by spectators etc etc made my blood boil.

Permalink Reply by Hugh on January 31, 2025 at 14:25

Urns & a sphinx?

Permalink Reply by Hugh on January 31, 2025 at 14:37

I also have images of the old monkey house adorned with with classical statuary if that wqs still around in your day.

Permalink Reply by Hugh on January 31, 2025 at 16:27
Permalink Reply by Colin Marr on February 4, 2025 at 10:33

I was pleased to see that photo of the statue in the niche (copy attached). It was one I sent to Kirsten more than ten years ago with a companion photo to show the empty niche from which it must have come. The photo was taken by my late elder brother, probably in the 1970s or ‘80s. I wonder where it is now - perhaps enhancing a suburban garden? It is a pity the custodians of Alexandra Palace at that time didn't look after it better.

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Permalink Reply by Hugh on February 4, 2025 at 11:33

Well done for submitting that to the archive, Colin. From what I can make out the statue is modelled on a caryatid (a stone carving of a draped female figure, used as a pillar to support the entablature of a Greek or Greek-style building) from the south hall of the Erechtheion or Temple of Athena Polias (a Greek temple on the north side of the Acropolis, dedicated to the goddess Athena.)

Here is a quote from another cutting Kristen sent me.

Like the Crystal Palace, the Alexandra Palace also displayed a number of plaster casts by Brucciani, "who has ranged along the whole vista of the building copies of the finest sculpture that adorns the palaces and museums of Rome, Florence, and other cities". Numbering approximately 130 casts, the statuary was arranged in four groups in the central transept, representing the four corners of the earth. Monumental versions of Melpomene and Thalia stood at either side of the stage in the theatre and the nave contained reproductions of the canon of antique sculpture. Canovas Three Graces, Powers' Greek Slave, MacDowell's Eve, Thorvaldsen's Mercury about to Kill Argus and Shepherd Boy and Gibson's Venus were also displayed, as were a number of busts representing historical and contemporary figures. Only sixteen days after it opened, however, the Alexandra Palace was destroyed by fire. 

From Rebecca Wade, Domenico Brucciani and the Formatori of Nineteenth-Century Britain, Bloomsbury, 2018

Permalink Reply by Shirley King on February 4, 2025 at 15:35

Thank you both so very much, that is exactly the statue that I saw as a kid. I did try to reply to you Hugh to thank you for all your efforts but somehow with all the pictures I could not find a way to do it. Good to know that they were what I described. Thinking about dates, it must have been late rather than mid 50's I used to see them.

Like Colin Marr I often wondered what happened to them. Some years ago when I was at AP I did ask a young man in the office about them and as you would expect, he had no idea of what I was talking about!

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