“They, therefore, submitted a plan of their own; and, assisted by Mr. Digby Wyatt, Mr. Charles Heard Wild, and Mr. Owen Jones, they prepared extensive working drawings, which were lithographed.... The Building Committee published in detail the reasons, both of economy and taste, which had induced them to prepare plans for a structure of brick, the principle feature of which was a dome two hundred feet in diameter. Public opinion did not coincide in the propriety of such a building, on such a site, and the residents in the neighbourhood raised especial objections. The subject was brought before both Houses of Parliament; and, in the House of Commons, on the 4th July, 1850, two divisions took place on the question, whether the proposed site should be used at all for any building for the Exhibition. In the one division the numbers in favour of the site were 166 to 47, and, in the second, 166 to 46. The Commissioners published at considerable length a statement of the reasons which had induced them to prefer the site, and there can be no doubt that the force of this document mainly influenced the large majority in both divisions. “Whilst the plan of the Building Committee was under discussion, Mr. Paxton was led, by the hostility which it had incurred, to submit a plan for a structure chiefly of glass and iron, on principles similar to those which had been adopted and successfully tried by him at Chatsworth. Messrs. Fox, Henderson, and Company tendered for the erection of the Building Committee’s plan, and strictly in accordance with the conditions of tender: they also submitted estimates for the construction of the building suggested by Mr. Paxton, and adapted in form to the official ground-plan. An engraving of Mr. Paxton’s original design was published in the _Illustrated London News_, 6th July, 1850, which, when compared with the building that has actually been erected, will show what changes were subsequently made. The Commissioners having fully investigated the subject, finally adopted, on the 26th July, Messrs. Fox, Henderson and Company’s tender to construct Mr. Paxton’s building as then proposed, for the sum of £79,800.” The first iron column was fixed as early as the 26th September, 1850, and the building was ready for opening on May 1st, 1851. It covered an area of 18 acres, was 1850 feet long, 408 feet wide, and 64 feet high, irrespective of the arched roof of the transept; and in order to put it familiarly before people, Mr. Fox, at a dinner given to him at Derby, June 28th, 1851, said, “I walked out one evening into Portland Place; and there, setting off the 1850 feet upon the pavement, found it the same length within a few yards; and then, considering that the building would be three times the width of that fine street, and the nave as high as the houses on either side, I had presented to my mind a pretty good idea of what we were about to undertake.”