The Crystal Palace

Dan Snow's History Hit

The Great Exhibition of 1851 was something to behold for the 6 million Victorian patrons who travelled to London's Hyde Park to see it. It was a triumphant showcase of the most extraordinary achievements of the Victorian age from industry, culture and engineering - gathered from all four corners of the globe. As visitors walked the 8 miles of exhibitions, they would have seen everything from the sublime to the absurd: the world’s largest diamond, a contraption to predict the weather using leeches, the world's first public flushing toilets and a two-person piano.

The enormous glass and iron building that housed the exhibition was big enough to house four St Pauls Cathedrals and its construction involved some of the most famous engineers of the Victorian age - Brunel, Faraday, Stephenson and Paxton.

To tell Dan the story of the Crystal Palace is historian and conservationist Steven Brindle.

Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Tim Arstall.

You can now find Dan Snow's History Hit on YouTube! Watch episodes every Friday here.

Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.

We'd love to hear your feedback - you can take part in our podcast survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on.

You can also email the podcast directly at [email protected].