Alexandra Palace

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(revised August 2025)

 

 

The Alexandra Palace Television Society is a charity that has helped to preserve these studios for many years.  They deserve huge thanks for ensuring that the studios themselves still exist and that so much work has been done in researching their important history.  Their archivist, Simon Vaughan, has contacted me on many occasions and forwarded a great deal of invaluable material.  I am hugely grateful to him and to the APTS as a whole.  Much of what follows is drawn from the documents and photos he has sent me but I have also been able to use a number of books and other sources – in particular the memories of Richard Greenough, one of the set designers at AP.  I met him a few months before he died and he passed several fascinating photos and documents to me for inclusion in this history.  I am also indebted to the people who worked at AP who have contacted me and to the Tech-Ops website, where many memories of BBC staffers have been recorded.

 

Of course, everyone in the industry knows (or certainly ought to know) that the first regular ‘high definition’ television broadcasts in the world came from Alexandra Palace.  The building is enormous with various halls and rooms and even a 2,000-seat Victorian theatre that was dark for decades.   Ally Pally was built in 1875 as a ‘palace of entertainment’ for the people. (An earlier construction had been destroyed by fire in 1873, only sixteen days after it had opened.)  During the First World War it was used initially as a Belgian and Dutch refugee camp, then as an internment camp for Germans and Austrians.  Unfortunately, a great deal of damage was done throughout the building.  In 1922 some of the Palace was refurbished but in 1935 the East Wing was reportedly still in a very poor condition.

The building itself is much loved by most, but certainly not all.  In his book about the first 25 years of television, John Swift wrote in 1950:

‘It is not an attractive building.  It is a great mausoleum in the most execrable taste, a legacy of Victorianism at its worst, a monument of brick and stucco that should make us ashamed that our concert-going and pleasure-seeking ancestors looked upon it with misguided pride.  If by chance you have never had the misfortune to see this monstrosity take a look at any photograph, ignoring if you can the incongruity of the gaunt, lattice-steel mast.  Blush with me, and turn away.’

Phew!  I mean it’s no Royal Albert Hall or St Pancras Station but that’s a bit harsh.

 

 

 

In January 1935 the Selsdon Committee issued its report on the future of television in the UK, following an investigation lasting 6 months.  They recommended that the BBC should carry out an experiment with regular broadcasts using two competing ‘high definition’ TV systems.  The meaning of HD back then was at least 240 lines.  (Today HD refers to at least 750 lines, progressively scanned).  They selected two companies – Baird (actually, no longer owned by John Logie Baird – he was forced to resign in 1933 but remained as a paid consultant) and Marconi-EMI.  The latter company was known to be producing far superior pictures but it seems that they felt that Baird should be given a chance to see what they could do to compete.

The BBC had 18 months to find somewhere in London to establish a television broadcasting centre.  It had to provide sufficient space for at least 2 studios, with easy access for deliveries and, most importantly, the transmitter aerial had to be 600 ft above sea level.  South of the river on a hill was Crystal Palace – but there was no available space there.  Meanwhile, in Wood Green, Ally Pally seemed ideal.  There was sufficient space within it and the building stood on a hill 306 feet high.  There was already a 100 ft tower so by adding a 200 ft mast to it, the height would be sufficient to enable the signal to be carried all over London and beyond.  The antenna was designed by Charles Samuel Franklin of the Marconi company.

The BBC took out a 20 year lease on the east wing of the building in 1935 and created two studios on the first floor.  The rooms had originally been designed as banqueting halls or function rooms.  Responsibility for the conversion of the building fell on the shoulders of Douglas Birkinshaw, engineer-in-charge, and senior engineer, Terence MacNamara.  They faced a colossal task.  Nothing like this had been attempted anywhere else in the world and they only had 18 months to achieve it.  This was made all the more difficult by having to accommodate the requirements of the two competing companies.

The BBC began transmissions on 2nd November 1936.  Baird won the toss so their studio was first on air.   Studio A was broadcasting in 405 lines using the Marconi-EMI system led by Isaac Shoenberg – and studio B in Baird’s 240 lines.   The TV broadcasts used the different standards on alternate weeks.

The transmitters for the two systems were installed on the ground floor, just a few feet away from all the electronics of the studios on the floor above.  Not really an ideal arrangement – at various times there were disturbances to the pictures caused by interference from the powerful transmitters.  Anecdotally, staff noted that if they held two forks together in the canteen they could create sparks between them, there was so much electromagnetic radiation in the air.

 

 

 

 

The studios were 70 x 30 feet, so a reasonable length but rather narrow.  Each had a separate control room and nearby were dressing rooms and a band room.  It was planned that the terrace outside the building would also be used for performances and the cameras could be taken down in a lift and out via a concrete ramp.  These local ‘OBs’ happened on many occasions.

I mention the lift, but designer Richard Greenough recalls that when he joined in 1948 there was no lift – the scenery had to be hauled up by rope from the ground through a trap door.  He says the lift was installed a couple of years later.

The transmitter mast was built on the north tower of the building and remains a landmark.  Curiously, the tower is faced with windows of a completely different design from the rest of the building.  One assumes that the BBC just went ahead and restyled it when they strengthened the tower for the mast, in order for it to look more ‘modern’.  Of course, compared with the Victorian splendour of the rest of the architecture it sticks out like a sore thumb.  So much for planning permission.

 

 

 

Baird is often credited as the inventor of television but his system was of a lower resolution than the EMI system and very unwieldy.  It was also rather unreliable in use.  Studio B mainly used a technique called the Intermediate Film System.  This involved a single fixed film camera that took a single shot of the performance stage in the studio.  The film passed out of the camera and immediately into a chemical bath – using cyanide – that developed the image.  This image was then scanned using a flying spot system and turned into a television signal with 240 lines.  The process took just under a minute to achieve.  The camera could pan slightly and there was a rotating lens arrangement to change angles from wide to narrow but the viewers would see this rather clunky change happen on shot.  The sound was recorded onto the 17.5mm film using the com-opt technique – thereby (more or less) maintaining lip sync.  However, because the film was developed so quickly, often bubbles in the chemicals created a burbling noise which caused the performers to sound as though they were under water.  The solution was to hit the developing tank repeatedly with a large stick.

 

 

 

Some use was also made in studio B of a TV camera which Baird called the ‘Electron Camera.’  This was a version of the camera developed by the American inventor, Philo Farnsworth, but it was very insensitive – far less sensitive than the EMI cameras next door so it required colossal light levels to produce a picture.  I have not been able to establish how this camera was used in practice or indeed how often it was used.

See my brief history of who invented television (the link is at the top of the page) for more about Mr Farnsworth and indeed Mr Baird’s contribution to it all.

 

 

Not surprisingly, studio A’s electronically scanned EMI-Marconi 405-line system with its moveable Emitron cameras and clearer pictures was preferred and the Baird system was abandoned after only three months, ending in February 1937.  In fact, shortly before the decision was made, Baird’s Crystal Palace base had been destroyed in a major fire in December 1936 when they lost all their spares.  Thus the poor man really was unlucky.  However, his development work continued for another eight years and he produced a system for broadcasting TV newsreels to cinemas and even a 3D high definition colour system.   (The story of Baird’s Crystal Palace studios is covered in the Independent TV Studios section.)

For the next couple of years, studio B was used as a rehearsal room and occasionally as an overspill studio, using A’s cameras.  Towards the end of 1938 the studio was equipped with 3 Emitron cameras of its own and a new control room was created in the area above the room previously occupied by the Intermediate Film Camera and its equipment.

 

 

You might think that I am suggesting that Baird was not the father of television after all and that all his work was wasted.  Not so.  Through his life’s work he proved that it was possible to create and maintain a television service.  True, without his work it is likely that others around the world would have come up with their systems but it is arguable whether EMI and Marconi would have worked so hard on their system without the local competition from Baird.

There is an interesting little story relating to Marconi’s involvement here.  Baird recalls in his memoirs that back in 1923, when he was beginning his television experiments, he went to the manager of the Marconi company.  The gentleman, a fellow Scot, was asked if his firm would consider providing support.  He was curtly told that Marconi had “no interest whatsoever” in television.  Clearly, something made the company change its mind as in 1934 Marconi went on to forge a strong link with EMI.  However, this cooperation didn’t last long and within a short time the companies were great rivals again when they began to market competing television cameras.  A rivalry that lasted until both ceased camera manufacture several decades later.

So, arguably because of Baird, the UK was in the lead in the development and provision of a television service.  A lead that was to last for decades.

 

It was clear even in the early days of television that these two small studios were insufficient for a full television service.  The old Victorian theatre within the building which had not been used for years, was also acquired by the BBC and detailed technical plans were drawn up as to how it might become another studio.  In the meantime it was used as a rehearsal room and to store scenery.  However, history intervened with the approach of war and all plans were put on hold for many years.  A third studio was never built at AP – the BBC’s designs for expansion would eventually be made elsewhere.

These plans were quite advanced – I have been sent copies of minutes for meetings where the proposals were discussed in some detail.  The minutes are dated from Oct 1937-March 1938.  The plan was to create 5 ‘stages’ or performance areas around the theatre (3 main and 2 subsidiary).  The theatre’s existing stage would become one of these and the BBC planned to remove one side of the proscenium arch to improve visibility from the control room!  The theatre’s balcony was to be removed and a number of supporting rooms were to be created outside the auditorium.  The plans were made public on the Alexandra Palace site of Google Cultural Institute in 2019.

 

The control room was originally to be constructed in the centre of the auditorium but this was later changed to be in the centre of the north wall. No less than 8 studio cameras were envisaged, plus 2 film cameras and an epidiascope camera.

 

What is particularly interesting is that throughout all these minutes the two existing studios are referred to as studios 1 and 2, not A and B.  The proposed new studio is referred to as ‘the Theatre Studio’, rather than studio 3 or indeed C.  However, they are marked as A, B and C on the architect’s plans and those who worked in A and B always called them that.  Very curious.

Incidentally, according to the minutes, ‘studio 1’ was equipped with 6 camera channels.  For a long time I found this very surprising as all other records indicate that studio A had 3 cameras.  However, Paul Middleton has helpfully solved the mystery.  There were indeed 3 operational cameras plus 1 spare (which I imagine was often needed.)  Two more identical cameras were used in a rather Heath-Robinson arrangement to show films.  A projector simply shone directly at the Emitron tube.  The results must have been pretty awful.  Interestingly, the Baird studio next door had a much more sophisticated way of displaying films.  Baird’s telecine machines would go on to become the Cintel flying spot machines that were used all round the world.

 

 

 

 

The Victorian theatre had a relatively short life as a performance venue.  When it opened it was found to be too large for many productions – the auditorium is relatively long and narrow, unlike most West End theatres designed by experienced architects like Frank Matcham.  He understood things like good acoustics and sight lines which unfortunately were not great in this auditorium.  It was for a while used as a cinema but eventually closed.  The theatre was in a poor condition when the BBC took it over as a scenery store.   Later, when they moved their drama and light entertainment to Lime Grove, they no longer had need of it and it became even more dilapidated over the following decades.

On 2nd July 2004 the first performance for 70 years took place in front of an audience of 200 – the structure of the auditorium being considered too unsafe for any more people to be allowed in.  In 2010 the theatre was closed to the public again because of safety issues but some work was done so visits could be made.  I visited in 2014 and the floor was safe to walk on and the ceiling relatively sound but it was clear that a huge amount of work was needed to enable it to be used again.  Around 2017 a large amount of lottery funding paid for its restoration – some of this money should have also enabled the TV studios to reopen to the public but the theatre cost more than was anticipated.  Anyway, a great job was done with the theatre, preserving its patina of decay, and it reopened in 2019.  For most performances now, the stage is extended forward and the rear stalls seats are tiered, which helps sightlines hugely.

 

 

 

On 1st September 1939 the BBC ceased television broadcasting.  Although the instruction had gone out to close down at noon it seems that an OB from ‘Radiolympia’ overran and this was followed, believe it or not, by a Mickey Mouse cartoon which began at 12.05.  Perhaps those on duty wanted to delay the closedown for as long as possible.  Mickey’s Gala Premiere was thus the last television programme broadcast in Britain for seven years.  There was no closing announcement – just a test card for a quarter of an hour, then nothing.  The transmitter was switched off at 12.35pm.  The studio doors were locked and most of the staff moved on to new careers in the services or working in radar.

However, interestingly, it appears that the studios here were not simply mothballed during the war.  There is evidence that some engineers were kept on to maintain the kit and that they made programmes viewed on closed circuit for their own amusement, using local amateur actors.  I have seen photos of all this but they appear to be copyright restricted.  I have no idea why.

 

 

When the Second World War broke out, television broadcasts ceased as it was feared that the German air force would use the transmission signals from its tower as a navigational aid. In fact, ironically, it was used for quite the opposite purpose…

 

 

Richard Greenough was one of the set designers working at AP in the post war period.  One of his memories is that when he designed a set for a play which took place in a magistrate’s court they had a problem getting close-ups of the magistrate.  The cameras had one fixed lens so any change of view was achieved by tracking the camera in or out.  However, the court furniture made this impossible, so he had to incorporate another desk for the magistrate with nothing in front of it to the side of the main set.  The flat behind him was of course identical to the other position.  When another camera was cut up, the actor nipped across the studio to sit in the other chair ready for his close-up.  At the rehearsed moment, he dashed back so a wide shot of the court could be taken.  This happened several times throughout the play.  Remember – all of this was live so you can imagine the possible disaster if the actor made his move at the wrong moment.  Below is the photo from Richard’s scrap book showing the two chairs:

 

 

Richard remembers the challenges he and and his colleagues faced, working on so many productions and with these early generation cameras…

In the early years, by today’s standards the television images were relatively soft and the screens they were displayed on at home were quite small – usually no more than 9 inches diagonal.  Only a couple of inches bigger than the iPad you may be reading this on in fact.  Place your tablet 2 or 3 metres away and you’ll get an idea of what watching TV was like in those days.

This did have some advantages in that studio sets did not have to have quite the finish and fine detail of today’s scenery.  Some ‘cheating’ was also possible.  For example, see the photo below with a cigarette stall used in a scene from London Town, a magazine programme about stories from the capital.  The items displayed on the shelves and the adverts are simply photographs, taken from the real thing.  Sometimes, large prints of photos were used as backings.  Later, when the BBC moved to the bigger studios at Lime Grove, the designers were able to employ moving backgrounds as there was room to have film projectors behind screens.

 

 

Despite the technical limitations of the system, the sets were often of very high quality and finish.  This, of course, gave everyone involved some good training for when cameras became sharper and television screens bigger, which was only a few years away.  By the 1950s, all the camera and TV manufacturers were working hard to develop better and better equipment and there were improvements to the picture quality almost month by month.  By the time ITV was launched in 1955 the live pictures being produced by the new companies and of course by the BBC were remarkably good.

The picture below of Bob’s Your Uncle gives a sense of a typical comedy or drama studio set from 1949 – certainly as good as you would see on any professional theatre stage at the time.  It is in fact from a musical comedy and is also drawn on the studio plans shown above in this section.  This set was in studio B, although there was another set in studio A for the other act of the show.  The orchestra was also in A.  There had to be an interval during the transmission when the performers, crew and production team moved down the corridor to the other studio.  Large scale productions involving both studios were not uncommon.

 

 

The range of programming that came from these two little studios at AP is astonishing.  Most was of very high quality with some of the best actors, musicians and dancers in the country.  One of the high spots of 1948 was the Paris Lido Show – a spectacular involving the cast and crew of one of France’s premier cabaret shows, brought all the way to London and crammed into studio A.  According to the Daily Mail…

 

 

Of course, not every production hit the spot and some actors had difficulties working in this strange new medium.  There were cameras involved so it was something like working in the world of cinema, except of course it was completely different in that the whole show was performed live from beginning to end with no breaks.  Rehearsals were short so hitting marks and remembering lines were skills that not every actor found easy.  Richard Greenough recalls…

 

Directors (or ‘producers’ as they were then called) became ever more ambitious with their productions.  After all, they were truly breaking new ground and there were no rules – beyond the natural rules of what was acceptable for the BBC to transmit.  Occasionally, they bit off more than they could chew.  Here’s another memory from Richard Greenough…

 

I have myself worked on the occasional sitcom where the studio audience is being held outside because we still haven’t finished rehearsing all the scenes in the show – but at least we didn’t have to do it completely unrehearsed and live.  What a nightmare!

 

 

 

When I began at the BBC in 1976 I was placed onto crew 5 at Television Centre as a trainee camera assistant.  A few months later we were joined on our crew by another trainee – Barbara Franc.  We believed that she was the first female TV camera operator in the BBC.  Turns out we were wrong.  Astonishingly there were at least two women cameramen (that is still the job title) at Alexandra Palace in the 1940s.  The first was Molly Brownless, (nee Heritage, then Frood).  She operated an Emitron on the re-opening day in 1946.   After emigrating to Australia in 1951 she was a pioneer with Australian television when it was established and went on to have an important career within the industry.

 

Simon Vaughan, archivist of the Alexandra Palace Television Society spent some time trying to identify a woman in a couple of photos, whom he assumed to be a floor manager.  Eventually, he identified her as Molly and tracked her down.  Subsequently, Dr Jeannine Baker conducted some interviews with Molly where she talked about her early career.  Dr Baker is a media historian, and honorary fellow in the Faculty of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Wollongong.   She has been working on a four-part online project for the National Film and Sound Archive on ‘The Women who made Australian Television’.  The following is a small part of an extensive interview she conducted with Molly.  I hope she won’t mind but I think it is definitely worth including in this history:

‘Before we actually reopened Alexandra Palace, in June 1946, there were seven girls on each shift.  Audrey and Joan were happy enough on Grams, Isobel hung around Studio B watching whatever was going on, as well us on the upstairs desk to see what she could pick up there.  Rachel was, as far as I remember, from the beginning in Studio A.’

‘I started on cameras right from the first day we put out a programme which was the day before the Victory Parade, which was a Friday, and it was the afternoon session in Studio B.  I was on Camera 3 (I was mostly on three whichever studio I was in) and so I didn’t, at that time, know very much about Ted Langley who was senior cameraman in Studio A, as Frank Cresswell was the senior cameraman in Studio B.’

‘I didn’t realise (in my naïve way), that I was actually going to do the transmission.  I’d being doing the rehearsal, but I hadn’t sort of twigged that having done the rehearsal, I would necessarily do the transmission.  I thought that all these chaps that were dashing around being very, very, important were going to take over the camera and do it on the transmission and I was absolutely vapped when I found that I was doing it!  The next day it was the Outside Broadcast of the Victory Parade, while I was in the studio working on “The Squadronnaires” (featuring Harry Lewis, Dame Vera Lynn’s husband).  That was a great time.’

‘Now it was after Bimbi Harris came and I’d being doing camerawork for quite some time, and she wanted to do that – I’m not surprised, I thoroughly enjoyed it and didn’t see why she wouldn’t want to too!  One day a reporter came from a television magazine and found out about there being a “cameraman” who was female or maybe he found out about two, I’m not quite sure.  Henry Whiting told me that they wanted to do a publicity picture of me on a camera and I was rather tickled at the idea, as you can imagine.  I was actually in Studio A the day the reporter arrived – working on a show.  At the end of the programme, I tried to find this photographer only to discover that Bimbi had already been photographed on Camera 2, which was the Crab!  I can understand why he would have taken her because she would certainly have taken a better picture than I would have done.  But, because she was photographed on a tracking camera and because she wasn’t the first female operator, the blokes were a bit peeved.  Bimbi hadn’t been at the Palace very long and I had been there for a few years at that point, they didn’t think she should have appeared on the tracking camera which, of course, is not one she would have operated, and they thought it should have been me.’

 

‘Now the next thing that happened which was why I and Bimbi came off cameras was due to the fact that the cameramen wanted to get themselves a higher grade and they were trying to upgrade their pay in relation to the other operators around – it was a very specialised job!  All the cameramen, as far as I know, including me, belonged to the Association of Senior Technicians, and they were expecting this Association to back their claim.  The Association didn’t like me being one of the camera crew because if I could do it then, obviously, it wasn’t such a very skilled job after all.  Henry, to avoid any splitting up of the blokes in the studio I presume, told me that I wouldn’t be able to do camerawork anymore.’

‘I think everybody was a TA1 when went to Alexandra Palace, but I can’t remember it being stated as a requisite. However, when we had been there some time a lot of chaps came out of the Forces, they had not necessarily been in the BBC before the War.  The BBC insisted those who were TA1’s would be B Grade.  Up until that time, the difference between operators and engineers had been an exam to get the status of B Grade, but they shifted it up a peg to C, so the exam was between D Grade and C, and that was the start of what became qualified “Engineers” as opposed to us “Operators”.  We were all still in the Engineering Division, but on different grades.  It meant an increase in salary, but not, if I remember correctly very much, and certainly not backdated so it wasn’t quite so startling.’

‘I remember that somebody on the other shift was actually working quite hard to take the exam.  Bertie Baker, stated quite categorically that no female, even if they passed the exam, would be given a C Grade job, so we could pass the exam if we wanted too but we would still be B Grade.  And so, somewhat to my relief and certainly to the disgust of a number of people, who felt they should have had the same opportunity as the rest did, simmer down.  I stayed on B Grade until I left.  Well, as you can imagine, I was pretty peeved about that, not just peeved, I was downright sick about the whole thing.  I don’t know who told Bimbi, it might have been Henry – but, like me, she just wasn’t rostered on cameras again.  Anyway, that was my end of women operating cameras.  Henry decided that because I had been so disappointed about coming off cameras – he thought well, okay she can do some vision mixing and I went virtually from the floor on cameras to vision mixing most of the time.’

I’m appalled, frankly, at the way Molly was treated.  I suppose this was typical of what was happening in industries all over Britain – with demobbed soldiers, sailors and airmen looking for jobs that women had been doing during the war years but it still seems desperately unfair.  Fortunately, Molly seems to have been happy to be a vision mixer and had a long and successful career in TV in Australia.

 

 

As soon as broadcasting resumed after the war it was clear that more studios would be required (pre-war plans to convert the theatre into studio C had been shelved), so in 1949 the BBC took over some film studios in Lime Grove, Shepherds Bush, whilst they began to plan their own purpose-built Television Centre.  However, programme making continued at AP for the next few years while the sound stages at Lime Grove were converted into TV studios.

Television was slow to be taken up by the public – mostly due to the cost of TV sets.  It is widely acknowledged that the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953 was the turning point.  This OB was the first time many people saw television.  Many sets were sold leading up to it – specifically so that people could watch the ceremony – and people with televisions invited friends and neighbours in to watch.  Immediately afterwards, sales of TV sets soared and additional transmitters up and down the country brought television to a greater part of the population.

 

One of the most famous dramas to come from AP was the sci-fi thriller The Quatermass Experiment.  This was transmitted live on Saturday nights from July 18 to August 26, 1953.  In fact, the first two episodes were simultaneously telerecorded – using the improvised system that had been built for the coronation.  Sadly, the picture quality was poor and there were said to be questions asked about artists’ contracts (some things never change) and the remaining episodes were not recorded. 

Ian Hillson has pointed out the following, regarding later telerecordings made here…

Of course, why telerecord the first two Quatermass episodes at all?  According to Andrew Pixley’s collectors’ booklet that accompanies the DVD release, there seem to be two possible reasons.  One is that the director Rudolph Cartier was keen to have some material to use for recaps and trailers, and the other is that the sale of the serial had provisionally been agreed with the CBC in Canada. For whatever reason, only episodes 1 and 2 have survived and can still be seen.

It seems that very few if any programmes were subsequently telerecorded here although the practice did increase in later years at Lime Grove and Riverside and even for a few years at Television Centre, when that opened.  However, in the early years it was the live ‘repeat’ that was recorded – as described above.

Quatermass was arguably the first mass audience drama serial to be transmitted on television and had the nation gripped.

 

 

The BBC’s lease for Ally Pally was due to run out in 1956.  However, despite purchasing Lime Grove in 1949 and converting four stages there into TV studios, it appeared that they intended to hang on to AP as well.  Imagine their surprise when they expected to simply sign to renew the lease and discovered that one of the big new ITV companies was planning to take over not just the BBC’s area but the concert hall and exhibition halls too, providing sufficient space to create 6 studios!

Norman Collins, former head of BBC Television, had snuck in the day before and obtained an option on the lease.  Collins had already purchased Highbury Studios in 1950 and created the High Definition Films company there.  In 1953 he was working for the Associated Broadcasting Development Company.  They would later merge with ITC to become ATV.  Anyway, it seems that his bid was unsuccessful (possibly due to lack of funding) and the BBC did indeed hang on to their two studios at AP.

 

 

 

In 1956, once Lime Grove was fully open and programme making had transferred there, studio B at AP became the base for BBC TV news.  Studio A was already being used for early experiments in colour TV (The first 405 line colour test broadcasts began in October 1955.)  The colour experiments moved to studio H at Lime Grove in 1958.

 

 

Roger Brunskill has sent his reminiscences of working on the early colour experiments to the Tech-Ops website and I hope he won’t mind me copying it here:

In the winter of 1956/7 colour transmissions were originated live at AP in the middle of the night and received by various brass hats.  I was the vision mixer for a few months.  We did two productions on alternate nights.  One was a variety show featuring Elton Hayes, a well known singing guitarist, and dance routines by Gillian Lynn and Una Stubbs.  The other production was a play called “The Revolver” a play based on story by an eminent Russian classic author – I forget who – with two or three actors.

We had two colour cameras and a colour slide scanner.  The cameramen were Maurice Fleischer and Tom Fawcett.  The S.Tel.E was Tony Stanley and the engineers were Ken Howe, Eric Spain and Bill ?.  The producers, directors and set designers were Barry Learoyd and Stewart Marshall.  Make Up was by Maureen Winslade and costume by Olive ?  These last four spent hours gazing at postage stamp sized colour samples on colour charts.”

 

 

In 1964 when BBC2 started up, both studios at AP were used for news.  By then the colour experiments had moved to studio H at Lime Grove.  Roger Tone has sent me this amusing little story concerning Robert Dougall, one of the BBC’s best known – and clearly unflappable – newsreaders of the day…

 

Dan Cranefield tells me that the news staff here also serviced three other small studios around London – one at All Souls Church next to BH, one at Heathrow and one at St Stephen’s House in Westminster.  Each was fully equipped but left unmanned.  When required, one or two AP staff would jump on their scooters and ride to the studio to fire it all up ready for an interview.  Not exactly the kind of thing that could be done at short notice, I’m guessing.

 

 

Studio A became one of the first of the BBC’s colour-equipped studios for regular transmissions when it had Marconi Mk VII cameras installed in February 1968.  These later made the move to the new purpose-built news studios in TV Centre in September 1969.  Roger Wilson has pointed out that BBC2’s Newsroom,  which went out at 7.30pm, was not only a full 30 minute slot but was also the first news bulletin in colour.  The first transmission was in March 1968.  Apparently, those working on this show were a bit peeved about all the publicity for the first ITN News at Ten which was a couple of months later – as they were claiming to be the first half hour news programme.  If you took into account the commercials, this programme was not only first but also longer.   These things do matter to some people.

 

Ian Hillson contacted me and he recalled…

Ian also recalls an event during the final news transmission that a certain individual has almost certainly tried to forget.  It seems that the occasion had been celebrated by the crew spending a perfectly understandable amount of time and money in the BBC Club during the day.  Now, as we all know – some can hold their liquor better than others.  The vision mixer – whom Ian refuses to name – was perhaps not what you might call an experienced drinker. I’ll let Ian tell the story…

Since it was the last day, once can’t help wondering if anyone bothered to clear it all up before the next incumbents moved in.  I have been contacted by Roger Tone and Roger Wilson, both of whom were also in the gallery that fateful night of Friday 19th September 1969.  They have confirmed the story.  Apparently, the guilty party subsequently went on to become a very well-respected engineer with Channel 4.  Tea-total, no doubt.  Don’t worry sir, your secret is safe with me.

 

 

 

In the spring of 1970, the  Open University  took over the studios at AP and began making programmes – the first ones were transmitted in January 1971.  Studio A was equipped with monochrome cameras (and possibly a new vision mixer) together with associated telecine and videotape facilities.  In the spring of 1975 the studio was colourised with three, plus one spare, Link 110 cameras. 

 

Following the colour refurb of the studio it was equipped as follows:

• A 50 channel Strand 2-preset lighting console.

• 74 5kW dimmers with a maximum load of only 60kW! (A peak demand of 70kW ‘may be tolerated’)

• 24 motorised lighting hoists with barrels 4ft, 6ft and 10ft long depending on their position in the studio

• a BBC EP5/502 8 channel 2-bank vision mixer

• a colour caption scanner for 35mm slides

• an inlay desk with monochrome camera for video effects including CSO

• a DK4/501 sound desk with 2 groups of 7 channels each

• an ‘episcope’ in a separate room. This was a rostrum camera with a vertically mounted Link 110 used to produce recordings of the various graphics that often featured in OU programmes. It was sited in the area previously occupied by the old Baird Spotlight studio.

• One Cintel 16mm colour telecine machine. (Cintel had its roots in Baird’s original company – one of his great achievements was the design of telecine machines, so his technology lived on at AP.)

• Three Ampex VR 2000B 2-inch VTR machines (a fourth was added later)

 

The videotape area was contained within a prefabricated building on the floor of the nearby exhibition hall.  There was a fire during 1980, shortly before the BBC left, in which the exhibition hall was badly damaged but the BBC wing was left relatively unscathed.  The BBC’s area was protected behind a firewall.  Ironically, when the BBC first applied for permission to take over that wing of AP, the owners insisted that the firewall was built as they considered that the studios might be a fire risk.   In fact, it protected them from the fire that destroyed much of the rest of the building.  Following the fire the telecine and slide scanner were moved into studio B for the last few months.  John Aizlewood was there at the time and recalls that they must have produced the last flying spot pictures from the old Baird studio.

The last actual programme made in B was probably a news bulletin in 1969, shortly before the news department moved to Television Centre.  However, Graeme Wall informs me that the studio was also used by the OU to produce animations for OU programmes…

 

I remember working in studio A on two or three days as a young and inexperienced cameraman in the late 1970s.  Some of us based at TV Centre worked at AP from time to time as ‘sick and holiday relief’.  I think I was sent there as a bit of training – and for the experience of seeing something rather different from the Centre.  It was indeed a world unto itself and in many ways it felt as though one had gone back decades.  This studio had become the home of awkward-looking bearded presenters wearing sports jackets standing in front of beige Hessian backings.  Marvellous stuff!

These programmes made for the OU were broadcast at all kinds of odd times and shown on BBC2.  They were effectively televised lectures given by university professors and other experts and were not intended for ‘normal’ viewers.  Unless you owned one of those new-fangled VHS recorders you had to get up very early or stay up very late to watch them.  Let’s be honest, some of the presenters were not exactly television naturals and so these programmes became the butt of jokes from various comedians.  However, they did enable thousands of ordinary folk who were holding down a job or looking after kids or caring for someone to have a similar experience to students at a conventional university and gain a degree that otherwise would have been impossible for them to achieve. 

Some of the programmes made for the OU did gain a wider audience.  For example, I remember seeing an outstanding production of Waiting for Godot with Max Wall and Leo McKern recorded in 1970 – it was repeated in peak time on BBC2.

 

 

The images below were kindly sent to me by John Aizlewood, who took them on the last day of operation – 3rd July 1981.  The last actual programme was a Nationwide OB with live links back to Lime Grove.

 

 

The following photos were taken by Nigel Finnis on the last day of the BBC’s occupation.  I hope he won’t mind me reproducing them here.  All the technical equipment has been removed – including the lighting hoists – and already everything is looking sad and very tired.

 

 

The BBC’s lease ended in 1981. The Open University moved their operations to Milton Keynes.

 

For a number of years the studios at AP were looked after by a trust.  However, there was very little money available to maintain the building and the BBC areas were left in varying structural condition.  An account of a visit around 2010 is rather depressing:

‘Studio A is said to be relatively sound and a few items are displayed in it.  The control room for A is, however, revealing signs of decay.  This gets progressively worse the further down the building you go.  The ceiling of Studio B has fallen in – revealing the roof space.  The Baird ‘Spotlight’ studio has signs of rain and pigeon damage and plaster has fallen off the walls in several of the rooms and spaces.  Some small rooms off studio B are apparently very bad – with rotten wood and rain dripping in.’

 

 

2011 marked the 75th anniversary of the launch of BBC Television from Alexandra Palace.  At that time, studio A was a well-equipped museum of early broadcasting and BBC News had a report from the studio.  It’s worth a look so here is a link:  Behind the scenes at the cradle of TV – BBC News

Over the following years, the condition of the studio and the rooms around it deteriorated as there was no funding to maintain the fabric of the building.  The rain started to penetrate and more and more damage was done.

The following photos were kindly sent to me by Simon Vaughan, archivist from the Alexandra Palace Television Society and were taken in April 2014.  Sadly, there are no images of studio B as that area was declared unsafe at that time.  There is also a photo of a re-creation of the original EMI/Marconi studio during the production of a typical play – it was a programme called We Take You Back To The Studio and was recorded by the OU in 1990 using the Sony 1250 line analogue HD system.

Click on the images to see them in higher resolution.

 

 

What next?

In 1900 Ally Pally was given to the people of London in trust for all time by Act of Parliament.  However, for most of the early part of the 21st century the ownership and future of Alexandra Palace was something of a minefield to say the least.  The building is owned by a trust. However, the trustees are not independent but happen to be the current councillors of Haringey Council – so some potential conflict here. 

Some years ago the trust (or more accurately, officers working for the local council) decided to sell the building to a leisure company, who apparently did not plan to preserve the TV studios.  Local people claimed that decisions over the sale were not being taken as a charity operating in the best interests of the building and the people of London but as a way of saving money for the council.

According to the ‘Save Ally Pally’ website…

The sale was delayed by the various legal challenges that were made over a number of years.  However, curiously, it seems that Firoka were permitted to manage the building for some eight months, allegedly running up a loss of £3m for the charity.  The protesting continued and many people signed a petition.  The Save Ally Pally campaign went to the High Court to ask that the decision to permit the sale be overturned.

Fortunately they were successful and the building remained under the ownership of the trustees – who of course still happened to be Haringey Council.  However, there did seem to be a change of heart and the councillors were now at last taking their responsibilities seriously.  The council officers who planned the sell-off were replaced and the Palace was given a new manager – Duncan Wilson – who it seems had extensive experience of running historic buildings.  So – well done indeed to the organisers of the Save Ally Pally campaign!  Mr Wilson spent the next months improving the fortunes of the building as a whole and steering the restoration and redevelopment of the Victorian Theatre and BBC studios.

In fact, he resigned after three and a half years, just before the planning application for the East Wing redevelopment was due to be agreed or not by the council.  The proposed plans for the TV studios were not well received by many campaigners and local historians (see below) but it seems that his resignation was nothing to do with this.  He was simply offered a better job as head of ‘Historic England.’

 

In May 2013 it was announced that a large amount of money had been set aside by the Lottery Heritage Fund to preserve the areas of Ally Pally that were run down.  The redevelopment included the renovation of the Victorian theatre and the refurbishment of the studios.  An imaginative plan was drawn up to restore the theatre and enable it to be used again for live productions whilst keeping the original Victorian wall treatments and ornamentation.  The old stage machinery has also been preserved.  The theatre reopened on Dec 1st, 2018.

 

Of considerably greater concern were the proposals for the studios and surrounding rooms.  The architects and designers seemed to have missed the whole point of preserving them so that visitors can view them as they were in the groundbreaking days of early television before the war and in the decade or so that followed.  Instead, they planned to turn them into anonymous black boxes and have interactive AV installations showing images from various moments in television history.  Studio B would also be faced in black plasterboard whilst the area between, with the various control rooms and Baird’s ‘spotlight studio’, was to be be ripped out and turned into yet another black box containing a few display cases with technical equipment.  In other words, these unique historical rooms would become a rather dry museum that could be anywhere. 

The excuse given was that a TV studio is a ‘black box’ but anyone who has ever worked in one will know that it is far more than that – with acoustic wall panels, boxes with sockets for lights, technical wall boxes for microphones, speakers and cameras, safety lights, cables, warning notices and general paraphernalia.  A boring plain black box it isn’t.  Just look at the photos of studio A in use and you’ll see what I mean.

No doubt it was all going to be technically impressive but I suspect visitors would be extremely disappointed not to see actual studios with cameras, lights, sound booms etc.  The AV display could be located elsewhere – the old transmitter hall for example – but studios A and B should surely be returned to something that visitors will no doubt be expecting to see.  Otherwise, why bother to go at all?

Needless to say, there was much dismay at these proposals, which in my view completely missed the point of the whole campaign to preserve the studios.

 

 

Studio restoration ‘stalled’

At a meeting between AP chief executive Louise Stewart and the venue’s statutory and consultative committees in June 2017 it emerged that the BBC studios would not be restored any time soon.  Certainly not by 2018 as had previously been announced.  It was revealed that the theatre had cost far more than anticipated to restore so the AV installation ‘Visitor Attraction’ plans for the studios had been dropped.

Committee member Jacob O’Callghan said afterwards that the public have a right to know why all the Lottery Heritage Fund’s money had been spent only on the Victorian Theatre, when the historic studios were part of the original agreement.

 

Fortunately, the studio wing has been repaired and made weatherproof.  There are new floors through most of it but the ceilings have all been removed.  Disappointingly, all the room divisions in the central area between the studios have been stripped out, including the mezzanine floors.  There is now simply an open area with a hint of where walls and floors might once have been.  The original Victorian window frames have been removed, opening up the studios to the colonnade areas.  Daylight illuminates the studios through the old BBC metal-framed windows.  The original frames with their internal wooden boarding lie on the studio floors, awaiting the day when they will be put back in place as they were in the BBC studio days.  The walls are all faced with protective plastic sheeting as asbestos fibres were discovered in the plasterwork.  This does sadly spoil the look of the whole area but removing or encapsulating the asbestos will be a major job for the future.

My personal hope is that a less ambitious and cheaper plan that restores the original appearance of the rooms will emerge.  One that could enable a re-creation of the studios without the interactive AV installation that had originally been proposed.  Something along the lines of what has been achieved at the Churchill War Rooms and Bletchley Park – which are both now very popular with visitors.

However, who will now pay for this? And when?