Ill-fated Ivory Palace was a ‘schoolhouse of all nations’
TODAY the location is home to Nottingham’s luxury Waterside Apartments offering panoramic views over the river.
Anyone crossing Trent Bridge would never know but more than 100 years ago a majestic building stood at the same spot, that was like a theme park, concert hall and museum all rolled into one.
Dubbed the ‘Ivory Palace’, the formal name for the magnificent property was the Midlands Industrial Exhibition.
When it was built in 1903 the cost was £50,000 - at today’s prices that would have been more than £6 million.
Behind was the City Ground, the home of Nottingham Forest, which had been built five years earlier in 1898.
The grand structure was designed by Hungarian-born brothers, Charles and Albert Kiralfy, who had created similar ventures in America and Europe.
The aim of the exhibition was to display products and inventions from all over the world and entertainment for visitors.
The promoters declared that they were “prepared to shock, thrill or soothe the public”.
The two-storey building was an eye-catching Indian Mughal architectural design - like a scaledback version of the Taj Mahal.
It didn’t take long to construct two different contractors worked from either end and met in the middle.
In the grounds were a Japanese tea house, Canadian water chute nearly 100ft high and with a 600ft slope - an American roller coaster, Tom Thumb miniature railway, Hampton Court maze, and a Fairy River that took visitors through caverns past walls set with magical scenes and down a lane of stalactites a mile long.
Inside were a photography studio, concert hall, electric theatre and the so-called Palace of Distorting Mirrors.
The Exhibition - described as a ‘schoolhouse of all nations’ - opened in May 1903 and during its first fortnight the extravaganza attracted 320,000 people, including royalty.
Queen Alexandra and the Prince of Wales (later King George V) were among the visitors.
One of the local newspapers at the time described it as “so American in its novelty”.
“One may be pardoned for suggesting, in a phrase very popular over the water, that it is the greatest thing in the way of entertainment that has ever happened in Nottingham,” said the writer.
The brothers had taken out a fiveyear lease but the impressive building had only been up for 14 months when disaster struck. Fire broke out on July 4 1904, caused by an electrical fault in one of the Fairy River caverns. Visitors were evacuated to safety as 100ft flames spread, threatening nearby houses.
The homes were saved but Nottingham Forest’s pavilion, board room and dressing rooms were burnt to the ground.