The 47 pictures, auctioned at Dominic Winter in Swindon, Wiltshire, last Wednesday, were only expected to fetch up to £5,000.

The prints, taken by photographer Philip Henry Delamotte, show the palace, which was destroyed by fire in 1936.

The iron and glass structure, designed by Sir Joseph Paxton as the venue for the Great Exhibition in 1851 in Hyde Park, was later dismantled and rebuilt in Crystal Palace Park in 1854.

A spokesman for English Heritage said: "English Heritage has purchased a set of Philip Henry Delamotte photographs of Crystal Palace on behalf of the nation.

"Our National Monuments Record in Swindon will be cataloguing and digitizing the images and we will be making them available as soon as possible on our public online photographic resource at www.englishheritage.org.uk/viewfinder .

"In due course members of the public will also be able to access the originals at the National Monuments Record in Swindon,

"English Heritage acquired the images with financial assistance from the Crystal Palace Foundation and the London Development Association for a bid price of £11,500.

"Crystal Palace was one of the key buildings of Victorian England and we feel strongly that this rare and important photographic record of the building and its contents should be preserved in the public domain."