Garden Palace facts for kids

The Garden Palace at the Sydney International Exhibition (1879)

The Garden Palace was a huge building made for the Sydney International Exhibition in 1879. It was built in Sydney, Australia. Sadly, it was completely destroyed by fire just three years later, in 1882.

The building was designed by James Barnet. A skilled builder named John Young constructed it. It was built incredibly fast, in only eight months! This was possible because electric lights were brought in from England, allowing workers to build day and night.

What Was the Garden Palace?

An engraving of the Garden Palace from 1879

The palace in 1880

The Garden Palace looked a lot like London's famous Crystal Palace. Its design was similar to a large cathedral. It had a long main hall with lower sections on each side, like a church's nave. There was also a cross-shaped section called a transept. Both parts ended in tall towers and met under a huge central dome.

The builder, John Young, was very experienced. He had even worked on the original Crystal Palace for The Great Exhibition of 1851. He also built other important structures in Sydney, like the General Post Office.

An architectural drawing of Sydney's Garden Palace from the 1870s

Size and Features

The dome of the Garden Palace was about 30 metres (100 feet) wide and 64 metres (210 feet) tall. The entire building was over 244 metres (800 feet) long. It had a massive floor space of more than 112,000 square metres (1.2 million square feet). Building it required a huge amount of materials: 4.5 million feet of timber, 2.5 million bricks, and 243 tons of corrugated iron.

The Garden Palace was quite similar to the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne, which was built later. It even had Sydney's very first hydraulic lift in its north tower! This allowed visitors to ride up and enjoy the views.

The palace was located at what is now the southwestern part of the Royal Botanic Garden. However, when it was built, this land was actually outside the main garden area, in The Domain. The building was mostly made of timber. This unfortunately meant it burned down completely when a fire started.

The Fire of 1882

An 1882 illustration showing the Garden Palace engulfed in flames.

In the early morning of September 22, 1882, a terrible fire broke out. Because the Garden Palace was built mainly from wood, the fire spread very quickly. The entire building was destroyed.

At the time of the fire, several government departments were using the Garden Palace. Many important historical records were lost in the blaze. This included records about squatting (when people settled on land without owning it) in New South Wales. Between 500 and 1000 precious Aboriginal artefacts from Sydney were also tragically destroyed in this fire.

What Remains Today?

Today, the only parts of the Garden Palace that still exist are its carved Sydney sandstone gateposts and wrought iron gates. You can find them at the Macquarie Street entrance to the Royal Botanic Garden.

Where the palace's dome once stood, there is now a sunken garden and a fountain. This was built in the 1940s and features a statue of Cupid.

Very few items from the 1879 International Exhibition survived the fire. Luckily, an 1878 Bechstein concert grand piano, which had won a top prize, was moved out of the Garden Palace before the fire. This piano is now kept at the Powerhouse Museum. The State Library of NSW also holds a few items related to the Garden Palace, including a piece of glass melted by the fire, a handkerchief, and a book of poetry about the palace.

Images for kids

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  View from afar

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  One of the towers

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  The Garden Palace

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  Statue of Queen Victoria, taken from under the dome

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  North Nave (taken from the Orchestra)

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  North nave

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  Construction of the dome

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  Ruins of the Garden Palace, 1882