The Historic BBC television studios at Alexandra Palace: an interactive journey

Elisabeth Welch: “At Alexandra Palace you had to climb over a whole sea of cables just to get to the camera which never moved, it was fixed to the floor, so you just stood there in front of it and sang your song. It was static, nerve-racking but amusing”

The National Lottery Heritage Fund East Wing project went a long way to making these historic spaces safe but the challenge of making them accessible for the public proved to be beyond our budget. Providing new lifts to the first floor, modern services – power, heating, lighting and alarm systems – would all have to be installed at a cost of £millions before the conservation work on shutters, floors and walls were tackled…

Opening up the BBC heritage at Ally Pally is still a top priority for the Trust and attracting funding is the best way to tackle our next big challenge. So raising awareness of these amazing spaces and showing the world what lies behind those brick colonnades had to be a virtual experience for now!

Fortunately, our close relationship with the Beeb meant that we were offered the chance to become BBC R+D Civilisations Festival Project Partners. The VR tour developed with New York whizz kids EEVO, was launched in May 2018 as “Television’s Hidden Home” and was the most popular piece of virtual reality content on the BBC Taster platform – ahead of London’s Light and Life as a Roman!

This year with BBC’s help and generous permissions to re-license the clips and images which bring this story to life with strategically placed “hotspots” on the virtual tour, we can share it with you in a format which doesn’t require VR headsets or glasses.

Just click on the link and follow the prompts by the narrator. Note – some of the hotspots are above you so use your mouse to navigate.

Hope you enjoy and that this taster inspires you to visit dear old Ally Pally soon.