Victorian Jurassic Park

I've been wanting to go along to Crystal Palace Park for ages. I've known about it for yonks but I have never gotten around to going there. I heard a lot about it on I Know Dino Podcast which is a great listen for Dino-geeks. I mentioned it on my dinosaur themed episode of my heavy metal podcast High Speed Hangover too. 

In fact I used a photo from the park as my show picture too. Check that out if you love a bit of heavy music folks.

So I finally went along to the park on my recent week off work. For those not in the know Crystal Palace Park has a few claims to fame. There is a massive radio mast there which is a local landmark in the area. Plus historically the Crystal Palace was there. The Crystal Palace was originally in Hyde Park, the site of the Great Exhibition of 1851. Afterwards it was moved to the area which was named for it and with some modifications and enlargements it formed the centrepiece of the Victorian pleasure ground before sadly burning down in a fire in 1936.

It also has the dinosaurs. Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins was commissioned to sculpt the 33 dinosaurs, and they were completed in 1854. They were sculpted to resemble what the scientists of the day imagined the then newly discovered dinosaurs to look like. 

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 the models according to Owen's directions.

A dinner was held inside the mold used to make the Iguanodon. The dinner party, hosted by Owen on 31 December 1853, garnered attention in the press. Most of the sculptures are still on display in Crystal Palace Park.

The models were classed as Grade II listed buildings from 1973, extensively restored in 2002, and upgraded to Grade I listed in 2007.

The models represent fifteen genera of extinct animals, not all dinosaurs. They are from a wide range of geological ages, and include true dinosaurs, ichthyosaurs, and plesiosaurs mainly from the Mesozoic era, and some mammals from the more recent Cenozoic era.

Iguanodon....

....and on......

..and on...

...and on!!!

Getting on a bit but not dinosaurs yet!