When it first opened in May 1927 the track was designed for motor bikes. Motor RacingĪlthough it may not seem apparent now, Crystal Palace Park was for many years home to a major motor-race track.
#Robert plaster crystal palace professional
Together, the Athletics Stadium and National Sports Centre have proved popular with locals and professional athletes alike and many a British Olympian has trained at Crystal Palace over the decades. As such, the indoor centre shares a number of architectural similarities with the Southbank’s Royal Festival Hall. The Crystal Palace sports complex was first envisioned in the 1950s by Sir Gerald Barry the man responsible for directing the Festival of Britain. He died the following year, aged just 36.Ĭrystal Palace National Sports Centre (image: Geograph). By this point, Bob was beginning to succumb to cancer and his Crystal Palace gig would be the last time he ever appeared in the capital. In June 1980, legendary reggae musician Bob Marley took to the stage. The Garden Parties continued until the early 1980s and during their time acts including Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton, Elton John, The Beach Boys, Procol Harum, Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, Roxy Music, Lou Reed, Deep Purple, Madness, Curtis Mayfield and many more graced the south London venue. In the early 1960s the Crystal Palace Bowl was established in the park’s northern area a popular, open-air music stage from which artists could perform to up to 22,000 spectators.Ĭlassic music and opera were the venue’s staples and in 1971 the first Crystal Palace Garden Party was hosted a summer festival featuring some of the era’s most celebrated pop acts. Sir Robert Bayden Powell agreed to the request and, within one year, 6,000 girls had joined the new movement. The girl-guides themselves have an important link with Crystal Palace Park- in 1909, upon seeing a Scout rally at the park, a group of girls decided that they should have access to a similar organisation. “ Long ages ago and probably before the birth of man, the earth was inhabited by living animals, differing in size and form from those now existing… whose bones, and sometimes even entire skeletons, are found buried in the earth, on the surface of which they once crawled and it is from the study and comparison of these fossil remains that the vast bodies which the visitor sees before him have been constructed with a truthful certainty that admits of no dispute.”īird’s eye view of Crystal Palace maze (image: Google). A contemporary guide book to the Crystal Palace informed visitors that: When they were unveiled in 1854 the collection of dinosaur models were a ground breaking attraction.
Head to the lake in the park’s south-eastern corner and you’ll find the ‘ Dinosaur Park ’ the most direct link with the original Crystal Palace pleasure gardens. The destruction of the original Crystal Palace, 1936.Īlthough the vast Crystal Palace building was destroyed by fire in 1936, there is still plenty more to discover about the south London park in which it stood.
0 kommentar(er)
