moonrising's Qype reviews
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Thicket Road, Crystal Palace Park, London SE20 8DP
moonrising
wrote on 25 March 2008
I have a vague memory of seeing these as a kid. I remember it as overgrown, with the dinosaurs half hidden in the undergrowth. If you found them you could go up and touch them. It was wonderful.
These days what you have is a series of lakes, with the paths around them partitioned off with fences. The paths would be a good place to run, if you like that sort of hard gritty surface to run on! I just realised: in a way it’s more like visiting animals in a zoo than a load of statues! It is sort of cool when you look at it like that, though sad that you can no longer go and touch them, though I suppose it has to be that way. Much of the vegetation has been cleared out, so you can easily see the ‘animals’, though it looks a little bare in patches as a result.
There’s actually not just dinosaurs. There’s several giant ancient mammals, and the way I came you get to those first. The dinosaurs are gathered around one lake. There’s many more than I remember (perhaps the others were unseen in the undergrowth), and too be honest to me it looks too crowded and spoils the magic a bit through that. The sculptures are pretty monotone in colour too.
Of course, they are no longer believed to be accurate depictions… but there are signs around with information on them, and modern drawings of what they would have looked like. I also like one place where they’ve got a waterfall (not running when I was there, which was a shame) overlooked by rock strata, which is educational too. Some of the plants are of sorts that would have been around at the time, though I think there’s work to be done on that (if you spot grass, or anything with a flower, that’s wrong for a start!)
So sort of mixed feelings, but they are still pretty fabulous. It did make me appreciate just how good my ‘local’ serpent in Stonebridge Park is: less educational maybe, but more colourful and designed for kids to clamber all over it! Crystal Palace Dinosaurs as a whole win of course. More to look at and an educational aspect. I enjoyed visiting them, and I’m sure many kids would too.
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Crystal Palace Park Road, London SE26 6UT
moonrising
wrote on 25 March 2008
I am not a transmitter geek. However it was nice on my long trek from Brixton to see this calling me on! Close up it’s definitely a crane-your-neck-and-go-oooo job. I’ve included some pictures for those that are geeks (or, like me, just appreciate the aesthetics), and there’s a couple more distant ones on the Crystal Palace Park review. The compound around it is bloomin ugly though, and makes for a bit of a walk to get into the park.
Incidentally as I walked through the park later I saw the transmitter looking pretty amazing, lit up against the sunset. Thought ‘I haven’t walked that far have I?’ as it was looking a bit small. Then realised it was another transmitter… So if you are a geek, don’t be so obsessed with this one that you don’t look for the other! Double the fun G
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10 Westow Street, Upper Norwood, London SE19 3AH
Crystal Palace Osteopathic Practice
moonrising
wrote on 25 March 2008
I found Crystal Palace Park a little frustrating… I arrived at the North, near the transmitter. Having got across a very busy road with no crossings in evidence I found my route into the park blocked by a campsite. It was getting late, I wanted to get to the dinosaurs and take some pictures before it got dark… but I ended up trekking quite a way along the top past the transmitter before I even made it into the park. And then there were no maps in evidence! Most parks have maps at the entrance, I’ve sort of got used to it, and it seems a good idea… Even by the museum (not open most days it seems) there was no map.
In the top section you’ll find the terraces, with balustrades, great sweeps of grass and the occasional sphinx. I rather like old ruins, but these are in a little bit of an in-between stage. Grass occasionally mown and little enclosures blocking you off from the interesting bits, like they are going to do some work but haven’t got round to it yet. Impressive, but also a little sad.
Due to fenced off bits and the National Recreation Centre you can’t head south east down the hill, but have to head across the top (back towards where I started for me…) and then down the other side. Past the terraces there’s a fence with a gate, which seems to mark the end of that part of the park (I believe there are plans, being loudly protested locally, to develop the area of the terraces. A big cinema complex was narrowly avoided. But the area in question is clearly in limbo). Past that gate (which still has no map…) you come into parts of the park that are clearly more looked after and rather beautiful. I kept asking the way and kept getting directed onwards and downwards. Each section of the park a new vista opening up. I was very puzzled by a great slab of a metal building sitting in a lake. I thought it might be a café, but there were no windows, only a single door in the back. Finally I worked out it was a stage! There’s a maze, bare of leaves at this time of year, but probably great fun for the kids.
For runners I guess heading back and forth across the terraces would allow a flatish and reasonably long run without too many repetitions. Heading down the park would bring in some hill work!
Finally after what seemed like hours I reached the bottom end of the park, and the lakes where the dinosaurs are. I’ll write a separate review for them. But… guess what… suddenly there were maps everywhere! After seeing the dinosaurs I stopped off at the loos (graffitied, scrawl not art). The café was closed by then (it was dark…) and I passed by the information centre, though it looked like there was an exhibition about the park in there.
My view… what an amazing park, and what an opportunity missed! This could be the best park in London with those fabulous terraces and the dinosaurs lurking at the bottom. Instead, you have got some nice bits, but there also seems to be too much interest in parcelling it off, and too little in making it what it could be. Those signs just typify it: it’s like the leafletters who dump a load of leaflets in the hallway of a block of flats and tell themselves the boss will never notice they haven’t bothered going door to door.
Still well worth a visit, but it’s annoying to see it so under appreciated.