The Ruins of Crystal Palace
current location: SW20 0UE
So...last Friday, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
midge3 and I did some exploring among the ruins of the Crystal Palace. This famous glass-and-steel Victorian structure was built in Hyde Park in 1851 for the Great Exhibition, and was then later moved to the park in South London that ended up giving the suburb its name. A bit like a Victorian Millennium Dome, it was never as successful as hoped, and eventually it burnt down in a spectacular fire in 1936. The flames were visible for miles, and ironically attracted more visitors than the palace ever did in its heyday.
The site has been left to crumble ever since, and there's quite a few ruins left to see. The area also had two railway stations. One of them is still open, but the other, Crystal Palace High Level, closed in 1954. This station was incredibly large and grandiose, but also suffered from very low usage, especially after the palace itself burnt to the ground.
There's still a lot to see, though, mainly the large flat site at the top of the park where the palace was located, with a large amount of steadily-crumbling stonework still in place.
Overgrown stone steps
Headless Statue #1
Piles of rubble
More steps, almost invisible behind the encroaching nature.
This, apparently, is the remains of what was once the world's largest marine aquarium. Very hard to tell what it once looked like, and also difficult to photograph through the fence.
Headless Statue #2 - you'd almost expect to see them carrying their heads under their arms.
Concrete seating area at the bottom of the hill, crumbling away dismally, #1
Dismal crumbling #2
Back at the top, crumbling staircases from the park to the Palace site...and then onto the old Crystal Palace High Level railway line...
Entrance to the tunnel at the northern end of the station site (now covered in houses)
Just something I found. :)
Tunnel entrance in Sydenham Wood
Trackbed heading north
Coxes Walk bridge
Under the bridge
And finally...a nice Victorian folly. Nothing better than a completely pointless building in the middle of nowhere.
So there you go. Besides this, we had a nice lunch, did lots of walking, and checked out the aquarium at the Horniman Museum, as well as Putting The World Bang To Rights, talking about subjects many and varied. I even managed to squeeze in a Geocache.
I also managed to find a Bookcrossing book out in the wild, which excited me a bit. I tried leaving my own books out and about with Bookcrossing numbers on them a while back, but nothing ever came of it. Still, finding one was cool, so I'll read it and release it. I also got "Bollocks To Alton Towers: Uncommonly British Days Out" in a charity shop, which is turning out to be an amazingly interesting read, so you'll get a review of it soon.
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Some great photos, I want to go there!!