Adelaide Glaciarium

Adelaide Glaciarium

Ice Palace Skating Rink
The entrance tower as seen in 1928 from Hindley Street Adelaide SA. State Library of South Australia B 4785
Location	91 Hindley Street, Adelaide, 5000
Capacity	580
Surface	35.05 metres (115 ft) × 25.6 metres (84 ft)
Opened	6 September 1904

The Adelaide Glaciarium (also known as Ice Palace Skating Rink) was the first indoor ice skating facility built in Australia. This is the birthplace for ice skating in Australia and is the location of the first hockey on the ice match in the country, which was an adaptation of roller polo for the ice using ice skates. Contemporary ice hockey was never played at this venue but this ice skating rink, the country's first, provided the "test bed" facility for its successor the Melbourne Glaciarium, the birthplace of ice hockey in Australia.

The Cyclorama buildings were built on Town Acre 74 in Adelaide, South Australia. This town acre was originally purchased by English born John Barton Hack, who was an early settler in Adelaide, at the beginning of the first land sales in Adelaide in March 1837 as part of a 60-acre lot purchase. On the eastern half of the Town Acre 74 property the proprietor, Mr. William McLean, built the Grand Coffee Palace in 1890. Immediately to the west of the Grand Coffee Palace, he erected the Cyclorama Entrance tower and vestibule on the western half of Town Acre 74 in the same year and the tower entrance and vestibule wall adjoined the Grand Coffee Palace walls. The adjoining wall of the octagonal-walled viewing gallery encroached on the boundary of the half acre the Grand Coffee Palace was built on by enough to see the property boundary line 2 inches inside the adjoining wall of the viewing room. The eaves of the dome surpassed the boundary by 30 inches. The eastern walls of the tower and vestibule were supported by the west walls of the Grand Coffee Palace building. This was later not found to be an issue after a Civil Court case due to Mr. William McLean having been the owner of both town acres at the time the buildings were erected.

The architects for the Cyclorama buildings were English & Soward, a business that started in 1880 consisting of Norwood, Adelaide born George Klewitz Soward and England born Australian migrant Thomas English. The cost of the project was £5000.

The original buildings were located at 89 Hindley Street, Adelaide, South Australia and opened to the public as a Cyclorama at 8:00pm on Friday 28 November 1890. The building was also referred to as the Trocadero even though it was more widely known as the Cyclorama.

The Cyclorama consisted of a street facing 2 storey Victorian terrace building with high Victorian dome, a long vestibule connecting the street facing tower to the main building, and the main building at the rear which housed the Cyclorama in a 'battle axe' style property.