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The 1873 building was destroyed by fire only sixteen days after opening, but was quickly rebuilt and reopened in 1875. It contained a concert hall, art galleries, a museum, a lecture hall, a library, a banqueting room and a theatre, and was surrounded by a landscaped park. The Willis organ installed in 1875 is still working, but its restoration is continuing.
In 1935 the palace was partly occupied by the BBC, who used it as their main transmitting centre with the famous callsign 2LO. The antenna was designed by Charles Samuel Franklin of the MarconiMarconi may be: People Guglielmo Marconi ( 1874 1937) Corporations: Marconi plc Marconi Electronic Systems Matra Marconi Space. company. The world's first public broadcasts of high-definition television were made from this site in 1936. Two competing systems, Marconi-EMI's 405-line system and BairdJohn Logie Baird (b. August 14 1888, d. June 14 1946) of Helensburgh, Scotland. Educated at the University of Glasgow, he was the first to invent a working system of television capable of showing moving images with shades of grey. Baird experimented with's 240-line system, were installed, each with its own broadcast studio, and were transmitted on alternate weeks until the 405-line system was chosen in 1937Events January January 1 Anastasio Somoza becomes President of Nicaragua January 11 The first issue of Look magazine goes on sale in the United States. January 19 Howard Hughes sets a new air record by flying from Los Angeles to New York City in 7 hours,. The palace continued as the BBC's main transmitting centre for London until 19561956 is a leap year starting on Sunday. see link for calendar) Events January January 1 End of Anglo- Egyptian Condominium in Sudan. January 16 President Gamal Abdal Nasser of Egypt vows to reconquer Palestine January 26 1956 Winter Olympic Games open in, interrupted only by World War II. After that it continued to be used for news broadcasts until the early 1970s, and for the Open University until the early 1980s. The antenna mast still stands, and is still used for local analogue television transmission
A second disastrous fire destroyed half the building in 1980. Some of the damage was repaired immediately but the project got into severe financial problems and the future of parts of the site is (as at 2004) still unknown.
In June 2004 the first performances for about 70 years took place in the theatre, first in its foyer then on 2nd July in the theatre itself. Although conditions are far from ideal the audience was able to see the potential of this very large space - originally seating 3000, it cannot currently be licensed for more than a couple of hundred. It is intended that the theatre will one day reopen but much costly restoration will be required first. The theatre will never reach 3000 again (not least because one balcony was removed in the early part of the 20th century as a fire precaution, when films started to be shown there) but it does seem likely that a capacity of more than 1000 may one day be achieved. A major season of the theatre company Complicite is planned for 2005.