3-003-723 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Progress of the building for the International Exhibition of 1862, (1861). '...the form of the building appears mapped out in its real proportions, the brick walls, when our artist visited the spot, having risen to some 30 ft. from the ground...The rows of iron pillars which strew the ground are being rapidly absorbed into the structure...The trellis-girders, which support the floor of the galleries, it is estimated might possibly under extraordinary circumstances be called upon to bear a weight of from 28 to 30 tons. A number of them were tested, and shown to bear a weight of from 72 to 76 tons... But the most astonishing and the most extensive of these labour-saving contrivances is a gigantic travelling scaffold, which has been built on twelve wheels, to run on rails up and down the whole length of the centre nave. This huge structure is 60 ft. square and 100 ft. high, and weighs nearly 300 tons. Yet...four men with levers can move it with a certain amount of rapidity to any part of the works. It will be used in hoisting the upper columns, the huge circular wooden ribs of the roof, for painting, or, indeed, for any purpose connected with the building where many men have to be employed at a great height'. From "Illustrated London News", 1861.