Quirky historic items unearthed during Ally Pally restorations

Items included a Lipton drinks’ bottle from the 1800s and a BBC-branded coffee mug from the 60s.

Several quirky historic items have been unearthed during restorations at Alexandra Palace.

Restorations at Ally Pally are nearing their completion | Submitted

placeholder image — Restorations at Ally Pally are nearing their completion | Submitted

A major project to repair Ally Pally’s North East Office Building, saw strange items from a time gone by uncovered by builders.

The project, which received funding from Historic England began in February and is now nearing its completion.

Among the items found was this tiny wooden shoe | Submitted

Decayed brickwork and timber have been removed, as have historic roof lanterns (which will be carefully restored in the next phase of work). New timber floors, walls, and roof coverings have been installed.

With the block vacated since 1981, this work has allowed exploration of the unused and hidden area of the Palace. As team did this, there were a number of interesting finds:

Lipton drinks bottle circa 1878 | Submitted

A Lipton’s drinks bottle from circa 1878. The Alexandra Palace archive captures a picture of a Lipton’s advert on a tram outside the North East Office Building in the 1920s.

A BBC coffee cup with 1960s logo, no doubt used here when the North East Office Building was the home of the Open University production unit. The OU broadcast educational programmes from the Palace’s TV studios between 1971 and 1981.

A Codd* bottle from HD Rawlings, in Nassau Street, Fitzrovia,London– an early example of a carbonated drinks bottle, dating back 150 years. Rawlings was taken over by R Whites in the 1890s.

Finally…well, no one is quite sure what this tiny wooden shoe is. If anyone out there knows, then please contact Alexandra Palace with your suggestions!

What next for the North East Office Building?

Firstly, the repair work needs to be completed, something that is planned to happen before the end of the year. This will give the Ally Pally team the chance to regularly access the building, from which point the ambition is to explore how it can be brought back into public use. This is something that, as a charity, will require additional funding to realise.

The Office Building was used as far back as 1875, to house the ‘offices of the administrators’, a ticket office, porter’s facilities, costume room, and the Palace’s first Superintendent; and from 1970 serving as office space for the Open University. Its restoration is the next phase of a major restoration programme that saw the Palace’s Victorian Theatre successfully reopen in 2018 following 80 years of closure; alongside the transformation of the East Court, thanks to funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Haringey Council.

In recent years, the proportion of the Palace that remains out of use has been reduced from 40% to 29%. Restoration – and its associated benefits for visitors, local community, local economy and the Palace’s environmental footprint – is at the heart of the charity’s vision for the future.