Place Name
Taken from the plain in the Peloponnese which was sacred to the gods in ancient Greece and where the Olympic Games was held, was used by the PR men of the exhibition centre which opened in 1884. It was originally called the National Agricultural Hall, perhaps because it was laid out over the famous vineyard nurseries of Lee and Kennedy. But when, in 1886, it staged its first circus, the Paris Hippodrome, which boasted a retinue of 400 animals, a chariot race and a stag hunt, an altogether grander name was needed, hence the Olympia Exhibition Centre. The venue was enlarged some 40 years later.
