West Norwood Cemetery

West Norwood Cemetery 

Opened 1837 

West Norwood Cemetery  Began its life in 1836 when William IV was king of England. For those of you have read my other blog post that I have done before will know that the church yards at that time in history were becoming overcrowded. So it was decide to build new cemeteries out in the suburbs of the city. The Magnificent Seven cemeteries were build over the next ten to fifteen years to resolve this problem which West Norwood is one of them. West Norwood Cemetery is an 40 acre site and opened its gates 1837. The cemetery is also known as the South Metropolitan Cemetery and was one of the first private landscape cemetery of its kind. The ground was consecrated by Bishop of Winchester on 7^th December 1837 and burials started soon afterwards. The cemetery was designed by William Tite who was a director of the cemetery company and he designed all the landscaping and some of the monuments that are still there today. The cemetery was the first cemetery in the country to be be designed in the new Gothic style which became very popular in the mid 1800's.

The cemetery was built on an ancient woodland called The Great North Wood which is how Norwood got its name. The trees in on the land were cleared for the cemetery but William Tite decided to keep some of them and in 2005 a survey of the trees in the cemetery. This survey found that there were fifteen oaks that predated the opening of the cemetery and one of them dated as far back has 1540-1640. There was also a maple and an ash tree as well.

The original site included two Gothic chapels which were place at the crest of the hill which over look the cemetery. There was consecrated chapel that faced west. The entrance had two octagonal towers, and cloisters spanning over the Anglican catacombs. Just to the north was a Dissenters' chapel, which had a north facing entrance that had cloisters over its unconsecrated catacombs. During the WWII both chapels were damaged by V1 flying bombs. After the war the Episcopal was flattened and a memorial garden replace it covering its catacombs forever. The main office at the front of the cemetery was also damaged and was rebuilt in a more sympathetic style to its Gothic roots.

In the 1960s the cemetery was became neglected and overgrown with vegetation. Lambeth Council brought the site and which a 'lawn clearance' programe which resulting in the removal of over 10,000 memorials. The local council is working very hard to bring the cemetery back to its form glory. This has not been an easy task as the council wanted to sell the old graves that were over 75 years old. This would be so that that people of West Norwood could be buried in the cemetery. This was not to be the case as in 1994 a court ruled that council could not do this, has the cemetery was originally private and not a municipal cemetery, it would be illegal.

The cemetery to day is a very nice place to visit and lovely to look around. I hope you will enjoy the images that I have took of the cemetery's monuments.

Disneyland Paris

Disneyland Paris

 

Disneyland Paris has been open for twenty years now and is still going strong. There was a plan to build a European Disneyland park as far back has1975. That was only nine years after Walt Disney died. It was considered that Britain, Spain, Italy and France would be the most likely place to build the park. Eventually France was chosen to be the best place to have the park built. This was because France had expansive flat land that would make it suitable for the park. The site in question was Mar-la-Valli it was close to Paris and very central within western Europe. This meant that the location was only four hours drive from an estimated 68 million visitors and only two hours flight from another potential 300 million visitors.
 

It would take another tens years before anything really started to move on. Then an agreement was draw up and signed by Mr Michael Eisner and the French government in 1985. Then a Mr Robert Fitzpatrick was appointed as the President of Euro Disney and the park started to take shape has the first 2,000 hectares started to be constructed in August 1988. Then in 1990 Espace Euro Disney was opened to provide the public with information on the park and a year later a casting centre was open to start recruiting the staff for the park.

Disneyland Paris opened its doors to the public on April 12^th 1992. The opening day was not a big success failing to reach the expected half million visitors. Instead only 50,000 visitors actually turned up on the first day. The company where very disappointed with these figures. The first part of the park complex had over run its budget massively, with the final bill being a whopping 22 million French Francs. The fact that over the next six to eight months the park failed to reach its targets for visitors. The park was receiving 25,000 visitors a day which was far short of its predicted figures of 60,000 visitors a day. This lead to the stock price of Euro Disney falling sharply almost wiping a third of its value. The European recession of 1992 did not help matters. This lead the company into some serious financial troubles. The fact at the time the very cheap dollar meant that people were being persuading to go to the Florida to see the original Walt Disney World. The park carried on losing money over the next couple of years.

 
The company's money problems kept on growing and by the beginning of 1994 EuroDisney was on the verge of bankruptcy and a series of crisis talks took place between the banks and shareholders. The Disneyland team had to try and convince the banks to restructure the loans or risk lose all the money they had invested in the park. The banks would be left with a bankrupt theme park and worthless real estate. This carried on until the banks finally agreed to Disney’s terms on March 14^th 1994. The banks wrote off the next two years of interest payments and the Walt Disney Company wrote off 210 million dollars of services bills. In the summer of 1994 the park started to turn its self around and from August onwards the parks hotels started to become fully booked. In October that year the park change its name from EuroDisney to Disneyland Paris. The park then went on to open new rides and in 1995 the park made its first profit of 22 million GBP. Disneyland Paris is now celebrating its twenty year and all those money worries are far behind them.

I went there earlier this year and thou it was cold and damp the place has a very magical feel about it. The place is great to take your kids, grandchildren or your love ones. Go there and relive your childhood has you walk around the park. The enchanted castle is a must see for anyone you have seen this castle on everything that is Disney, but to see it in real life is something else. I would recommend to anyone to visit Disneyland Paris it is a wonderful place.

Alexandra Palace

 Alexandra Palace

The people's Palace

The Hill where Alexandra Palace now stands was originally part of Tottenham wood Farm. Has the surrounding acres where sold off to be filled up with housing it left the top of the hill free. It was thought that it was a good idea to move the existing Alexandra Palace from Kensington to its new home over looking North London. It was re-erected on the top of the hill and opened for business in 1873. Only sixteen days after it opened a fire broke out and the whole building was totally destroyed. During those sixteen days of its opening the palace had attracted over hundred thousand visitors which showed that Ally Pally had the potential to be a major attraction in London.

This helped the owners to decide to rebuild the palace. Ally Pally was redesigned and rebuilt. It opened for business in May 1875. The palace was so popular that it had its own railway station severing it. The railway was part of the Northern Railway Company,s line and had its platform at the north side of the palace which is still there today, but sadly it is not in use. Alexandra Palace covers seven acres of land that had ornamental lakes, funfair and sport facilities on it. The main building had room for large exhibitions it also had a theater, a library, a museum and a lecture hall and could stage concerts and banquets.

Alexandra Palace also has a big place in television history because of one very popular entertainment. That entertainment was the birth of television or at leased the first television broadcast that was transmitted from there on 2^nd November 1936. The BBC had leased the east wing of the building earlier that year. There were two television studios on the second floor and the transmitter was built on the top of the east wing tower. The early days provided two different types of formats the Baird 240-line optical system and the Marconi-EMI 405-line system after only a year the Baird system was phrased out has the other system was far better. In the early days the transmissions could only reach a distance of 25 miles but this distance increased over the years has new transmitters were add around London. The Ally Pally transmitter kept on transmitting until the early 1950's when the new Crystal Palace high powered transmitter took over. At the same time the studio's closed and moved to there new location in Lime Grove. In the early sixty's Television Centre opened in Wood Lane and most of the productions were moved there. The news went on producing its programs from Ally Pally until the early seventy's. It was then moved to Television Center with all the other programs. Alexandra Palace was then used has a production facility for the program Open university and did so until 1980 when the BBC's lease ended and the studio's finally closed.

Also in 1980 HaringeyCouncil took over the daily running of the palace and its grounds. Unfortunately in the same year a huge fire broke out in the great hall and totally gutted the central part of the palace. It took another eight years of restoration work before the Palace could open again which it did in 1988.

I have been visiting Ally Pally from when I was a kid and I find it a wonderful place to visit for the whole family. There is a boating lake and the view from the top of the hill is excellent on a clear day. They have a fun fair there two to three times a year. The great hall is still used today for concerts and exhibitions truly grand but not has grand has the original great hall that had a semi circle steel glass roof before the big fire in 1980. A great place to go.