Egyptian Hall

The Egyptian Hall stood in Piccadilly, London, from 1812 until 1905. It was built in the Egyptian style for William Bullock’s museum of curiosities. The architect Peter Frederick Robinson designed its façade to look like an Egyptian temple. Bullock filled the hall with objects from Captain Cook’s voyages and other rarities. The building became London’s first major Egyptian-style structure. The hall drew crowds with shows of Napoleonic relics and large paintings. In 1816, 220,000 visitors saw Napoleon’s captured carriage. Théodore Géricault’s painting The Raft of the Medusa was exhibited there in 1820. Lecturers like Albert Smith told stories illustrated by painted scenes. Magic shows by Maskelyne and Cooke ran for 31 years, earning the hall the name ‘England’s Home of Mystery’. Inside, visitors found a grand hall with rooms for paintings and displays. Watercolours by Turner were shown on its walls. A family of Laplanders with reindeer gave sleigh rides to guests. The Dudley Gallery housed the Earl of Dudley’s pictures during his own gallery’s construction. After the hall closed, its name lived on in rhyming slang for a ball.