We knew there were long forgotten Spiegel Palaces still sitting in trailers and barns across Europe but how could we find them? We knew that what usually happened is at the end of one season the whole tent would be packed up in a barn (to protect it from the winter rains) ready to re-emerge the following year and get back on the road; but sometimes the family would decide they had had enough of touring and moved on to new ventures, sometimes the death of the family Matriarch or Patriarch put an end to the family trade of taking entertainment to the masses; either way we knew there was one constant.... The tents had been placed in a barn for safe storage.

These amazing travelling dance venues are commonly known as "Spiegel Tents" (literally "mirror tent") because in recent years the Flemish style of decor filling the interior with mirrors became the most commonly seen restored structure, but with thousands of these portable structures plying their trade across the UK and Europe for more than 150 years there are many ways to describe them.

From the mid 1850's right through to the 1980's small family business's created their own unique travelling ballrooms; moving from village to village and set up in a day they were the perfect way for the whole village to get together for a dance in the opulent interior of a magnificent Spiegel Palace with either a live band playing or sometimes a steam powered organ playing the dance hits of the day.