Alexandra Palace including former Alexandra Palace Station to North

Alexandra Palace including former Alexandra Palace Station to North

Alexandra Palace is a large institutional building covering approximately seven and a half acres, constructed in cast-iron and steel columns with walls of white Huntingdon and yellow stock brick embellished with patterned red brickwork in the Italianate style. Classical mouldings and ornaments such as cornices, volutes, keystones and lions' heads are made of Portland cement.

The Palace follows a symmetrical plan centred on a great central hall which corresponds with the central transept of the original building and runs between the north and south frontispieces that survived from that building. Flanking the great hall were an Italian garden to the west and an exhibition hall to the east, with two conservatories beyond them. The entire south front was originally occupied by refreshment rooms including a large banqueting hall; the north front held a concert room and a large theatre. Most of the internal walls defining this plan survive, though the roofs have been replaced and open areas roofed over. The concert hall and refreshment rooms have been lost, but the theatre auditorium to the north east and the BBC studios to the south, adapted from former refreshment rooms in 1935, survive.

The north elevation is the least fire-damaged area, featuring a central frontispiece with pedimented gable and large recessed rose window (now blocked) above an entrance porch which originally connected to the approach from the former railway station. The east and west elevations served as entrance fronts with vestibules behind, largely rebuilt between 1980 and 1988 following the original form and reusing structural ironwork in part. The Palm Court entrance on the west, now the main public entrance, has a pedimented gable and arcaded ground floor.

The south elevation is dominated by a central pedimented and gabled frontispiece with a large recessed rose window (reinstated after fire) above an entrance porch. The gable features patterned brickwork. An arch flanked by tall three-light windows separated by half columns with a segmental pediment above leads to a two-storey, fifteen-bay colonnade on either side, divided into three sections and terminating in square towers. The upper colonnade is arched with stone columns, while the lower has flat arches resting on brick piers. The south east corner tower was adapted in 1935 to house offices and studios for the BBC with metal canted bays and the addition of a tall steel latticed girder mast on top.

Interior survival is patchy, with principal areas of interest in the eastern part of the building. The theatre auditorium in the north east retains fittings of interest dating from 1875, including a rear balcony, large raked stage, proscenium with niches and, below the stage, a complete set of Victorian stage machinery designed by Messrs Grieve and Son. This machinery comprises a series of wooden bridges, traps, pulleys and levers to enable large scene transformations in pantomime and melodrama and the projection of props and actors onto the stage, representing the most pristine example in the country. Neoclassical decoration on either side of the auditorium dates from the 1920s when W Macqueen-Pope was manager.

The former BBC studios 'A' and 'B' have historic rather than architectural interest. A significant feature in studio 'A' is the glazed control room or 'gallery'. Some original doors to the studios with brass porthole windows survive. West of the studios the original staircase survives with ramped wooden handrail, turned balusters and chamfered newel posts. Some original cast-iron columns with capitals survive on the ground floor in this part of the building. Some areas of the Palace have been demolished and are therefore of no interest, including unroofed spaces at the south west and north west corners and the area occupied by the skating rink. The Great Hall has been renewed sympathetically following its almost total destruction in the 1980 fire. The columns and glazed roof were not reinstated; instead a new pitched roof slung below tubular lattice girders was constructed with a ceiling of tensioned acoustic fabric imitating a barrel vault. The overall spatial quality of this interior and that of the west hall are of interest. The original Willis organ, restored in the 1980s, stands to the north of the Great Hall. The Palm Court to the west, originally a conservatory, escaped serious fire damage and has cast-iron columns and piers with foliated capitals; the roof has been reglazed.

The former railway station, now a community centre, is a small single-storey building with gabled cross wing and pitched slate roof, built in white bricks with red brick banding and dressings in Italianate style to complement that of the Palace. It features round-headed keyed windows linked by string courses and a segmental-headed entrance, with rusticated angle piers. The cross wing has a roundel in the gable and moulded brick parapet. Moulded brick chimney stacks complete the exterior. The interior has no features of interest.