The Crystal Palace to be rebuilt ???

[red devil]

It would've been the contents of the building that caught fire not the cast iron structure and glass panels. The subsequent high temps created by the fire would've eventually caused the structure to warp/buckle and eventually fail/collapse.

Your common side/rear extensions have steel supports that have to be fire protected for this very reason...

[computedshorty]

A rare view of these cards

[Jeremy]

Yeah RD, I guessed the heat must have broken the glass and damaged the iron structure... just surprised that whatever was inside burned hot enough to warp iron!

[Pickle]

Great photos - I'm slightly embarrassed to admit I had no idea that structure was ever there, despite being a regular at the National Sports Centre and the park. I can't see it being rebuilt, no way of making it pay for itself in the long term, surely?

[computedshorty]

This is the Very large Railway Station Facing Crystal Palace

The passagewa from the station under the road into Crystal Palace

[dulpostcardpat]

You might be interested in the Pre Historic Animals that were in the lower Park

[Voyageur]

Mixed feelings by the locals - some are excitedly pro, others are vehemently against. It sounds fantastically grand and might look amazing, but would it be filled with Penthouse apartments and a mega shopping mall? There would presumably have to be some kind of return on the investment. Also, the local roads wouldn't be able to cope with the massive influx as they are pretty packed already - plus local traders in the triangle think their businesses would suffer.

I live very close to CP Park and am in two minds - it is a lovely park as it is and the proposed structure would swamp it.

[bigdavid]

The main fuel for the fire was the timber floors which had been treated with turpentine which is very flammable.

[????]

Crystal Palace being redeveloped is up there with the tube coming to Camberwell as something that's been talked about ever since I've lived in SE London (the mid 80s)

[Ann]

Agreed. It's wonderful local history and thanks for the images posted but in all honesty, what would be the point?

[computedshorty]

A scaffold was put up to erect the pal;ace but it collasped,

so they built it again. then the hall was filled with exhibits

[Annette Curtain]

Don't hold your breath, Bromley council are involved. Seen anything in Bromley that even vaguely raises your pulse ?

[red devil]

Annette Curtain Wrote:

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> Don't hold your breath, Bromley council are

> involved. Seen anything in Bromley that even

> vaguely raises your pulse ?

How about Miss Bromley, as seen thru the eyes of Year 4...

http://www.schooljotter.com/imagefolders/reidstreet/Staff_Pictures/Miss_Bromley.JPG

[DulwichFox]

One should remember that The Crystal Palace originally stood in Hyde Park..

It was dismantled and reassembled at The Sydenham site. Work started in 1852.

http://www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/CrystalPalace.htm

Foxy

[computedshorty]

There was and still is a second Crystal Palace Station Called crystal Palace High Level, strange name because it is actually lower than Crystal Palace Low level and in fact passes underneath the Crystal Palace and the other station.

The station is just to the right of third picture down the hill, the other station is shown.

[edhistory]

DulwichFox Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

>

> http://www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/CrystalPalace.htm

>

Good book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Musical-Life-Crystal-Palace/dp/0521375622/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1375000431&sr=1-2

John K

[dulpostcardpat]

There is no chance of rebuilding the Crystal Place.

It might be more fitting to have a Shard style Tower on Goose Green based on the local factory, using a Batey's Ginger Beer Bottle, not as large as the Shard but tall enough to cast a shadow like a Sun Dial indecating the time, children playing there would see the shadow and tell the time to go home.

[computedshorty]

A few more pictures of the fire.

[malumbu]

1. Yeh yeh. When I moved into London they were going to do up Battersea Power Station. That was 26 years ago

2. For those with short memories the last attempt at developing the top site was a disaster, planning permission challenged by us Nimbys, and overturned following a JR, with help from our friends in Brussels

3. The Palace was a commercial flop for most of its time, and maybe even set alight on purpose, being an accident waiting to happen. It was pretty tacky in it final decades.

The good stuff happened much earlier.

Tis a wonderful site and still much to see. Bromely/LCC made a mess of it post war, eg tipping loads of WW bomb spol spoil and subsequently a lack of protection from vandals. So loads of potential.

[computedshorty]

Some of the Pre Historic Monsters, I remember getting into a hole in the under body of the Dragon there was a brazier to be lighted and show smoke coming from its mouth.

[computedshorty]

Sir Joseph Paxton was an English gardener and architect, born on 3rd August 1803.

He was best known for designing The Crystal Palace in London. He was the seventh son of a farming family, born in Milton Bryan, Bedfordshire.

He became a garden boy at the age of 15 for Sir Gregory Osborne-Turner at Battlesden Park, near Woburn.

He enroled at the Horticultural Society's Chiswick Gardens in 1823, and spent much time in the grounds of nearby Chiswick House, owned by the 6th Duke of Devonshire.

The Duke befriended the young Paxton and became impressed with his skills and enthusiasm, later offering the 23 year old the position of Head Gardener at the family's seat, Chatsworth House in Derbyshire.

It was here that he met and married his wife, the housekeeper's niece, Sarah Brown.

Whilst at Chatsworth Gardens, he built enormous fountains as well as an arboretum, a 300ft conservatory and a model village.

Paxton secured a cutting from Kew Gardens of a Victoria Regia Lily from South America and designed a heated pool that enabled him to breed the lily to an enormous size. He was forced to rehouse the lily in its own glasshouse, the Victoria Regis House, the design of which was based on the lily's own structure. This went on to form the design basis for the Crystal Palace.

The palace was a cast iron and glass building originally erected in Hyde Park to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. It was 1,848 feet long, 408 feet wide and 108 feet high and required 4,500 tons of iron, 60,000 cubic feet of timber and needed over 293,000 panes of glass. After the exhibition Paxton was employed by the Crystal Palace Company to move it to Sydenham in South London where it stood until it burned down in 1936. Although he remained Head Gardener at Chatsworth, Paxton undertook other projects such as the Crystal Palace, as well as being a director of the Midland Railway. He worked on many grand public parks and various country houses in Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and even in Paris, France.

He later became a Liberal MP for Coventry from 1854 until his death in 1865. He published various botanical and horticultural magazines and books and suggested several improvements for the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. He died on 8th June 1865 in Sydenham, London.

[david_carnell]

Dinner inside the iguanadon!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/Crystal_palace_iguanodon.jpg/640px-Crystal_palace_iguanodon.jpg

[the-e-dealer]

But would MR Swampy allow it?

[dbboy]

It would be wonderfull to see the Crystal Palace resurrected to its former glory, and so provide a focal point for south east London and attract visitors from all over the world. THe structure once complete could be used for all manner of uses from exhibitions. concerts, weddings etc.

[computedshorty]

The modles were due to Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins possibly due to Derby's connections.

Hawkins was appointed assistant superintendent of the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London. The following year (1852), he was appointed by the Crystal Palace company to create 33 life-size concrete models of extinct dinosaurs to be placed in the south London park to which the great glass exhibition hall was to be relocated.

In this work, which took some three years, he collaborated with Sir Richard Owen and other leading scientific figures of the time Owen estimated the size and overall shape of the animals, leaving Hawkins to sculpt models according to Owen's directions.

Although it is often claimed that a dinner was held inside the Iguanodon, in fact the dinner was held inside the mold that was used to make the large sculpture.

Nonetheless, the dinner party, hosted by Owen on 31 December 1853, garnered attention in the press. Some of the sculptures are still on display at Sydenham Crystal Palace Park.