Crystal Palace Park

I spent most of Saturday down at Crystal Palace Park in East Croydon, London. It's a place I've wanted to visit for a long time, but it's out of the way and I never got down. There is quite a bit of history here, which I'm going to share with you.

First of all, the dinosaur park.

So called the "world's first" dinosaur park, it was opened in 1854 and at the time caused outrage because of it's proposal of the theory of evolution. In fact, the park was opened 6 years before Darwin published his Origin of Species.

One of the men who worked on the park was Richard Owen, who also first coined the term "dinosauria", meaning "terrible lizard".

The park underwent a restoration in 2001, and while the models can't compete with the ones we've got in Calgary... they are much, much older.

Secondly, and slightly more impressive, is the location of the now-destroyed Crystal Palace Park.

To give you an idea, here is what the location looks like today:

And here's what it looked like when it was built:You can see in this picture the stairs and columns and the walkway. The sheer size of this building is beyond my ability to imagine, and it's a shame it isn't around any more.
Here's another view of the stairs, which will give you an idea of how massive Crystal Palace was.

Here's a brief history of Crystal Palace (thanks from the BBC):

The Crystal Palace was a huge glass and iron structure originally built in 1851 for the Great Exhibition held in London's Hyde Park. Prince Albert, head of the Society of Arts, had the idea of an exhibition to impress the world with Britain's industrial achievements.

Countries including France, the United States, Russia, Turkey and Egypt all attended with exhibits falling into four main categories - Raw Materials, Machinery, Manufacturers and Fine Arts.

The Palace was designed by Sir Joseph Paxton and after the Great Exhibition finished in October 1851 he had the idea of moving it to Penge Place Estate. Sydenham as a 'Winter Park and Garden under Glass'.

August 1852 saw the rebuilding work begin and in June 1854 Crystal Palace was re-opened in its new location by Queen Victoria. The whole building was enormous - 1,848 feet long and 408 feet wide including two huge towers and many fountains with over 11,000 jets rising into the air.

The palace and the grounds became the world's first theme park offering education, entertainment, a rollercoaster, cricket matches, and even 20 F.A. Cup Finals between 1895 -1914.

The site attracted 2 million visitors a year and was also home to displays, festivals, music shows and over one hundred thousand soldiers during the First World War.

Crystal Palace was cursed by bad luck and financial crisis. In 1861 the Palace was damaged by strong winds and on Sunday 30th December 1866 a fire broke out destroying the North End of the building along with many natural history exhibits.

Although the palace saw many successful years and millions of visitors financial problems plagued the Palace. Its sheer size meant it was impossible to maintain financially and it was declared bankrupt in 1911.

However, it was the night of 30th November 1936 that saw the most devastation. A huge fire broke out across the building. By morning most of the Palace was destroyed. There had been 88 fire engines, 438 officers, men from 4 fire brigades and 749 police officers on duty that historic night.

Here's a picture of the damage that the fire had done to the palace. It really is a shame, since it would've been such an impressive sight today, but oh well. The grounds are still fun to walk around on.

I'm still working through a list of things I'd like to get done before I return to work at the end of the month, so hopefully the weather holds out and you can expect more blog posts!