Crystal Palace circuit

Crystal Palace Park is a Victorian pleasure ground located in the South London suburb of Crystal Palace which surrounds the site of the former Crystal Palace Exhibition building. The Palace had been relocated from Hyde Park, London after the 1851 Great Exhibition and rebuilt with some modifications and enlargements to form the centrepiece of the pleasure ground, before being destroyed by fire in 1936. The park features full-scale models of dinosaurs in a landscape, a maze, lakes, and a concert bowl.This site contains the National Sports Centre, previously a football stadium that hosted the FA Cup Final from 1895 to 1914 as well as Crystal Palace F.C.'s matches from their formation in 1905 until the club was forced to relocate during the First World War. The London County Cricket Club also played matches at Crystal Palace Park Cricket Ground from 1900 to 1908, when they folded, and the cricket ground staged a number of other first-class cricket matches and had first been used by Kent County Cricket Club as a first-class venue in 1864. The park is situated halfway along the Norwood Ridge at one of its highest points. This ridge offers views northward to central London, eastward to the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge and Greenwich, and southward to Croydon and the North Downs. The park remains a major London public park; maintained by the LCC and then the GLC, but with the abolition of the GLC in 1986 the park and its management were moved into the London Borough of Bromley. The park has one of the largest weekly outdoor Farmers' Markets in London. In recent years the park has also played host to organised music events such as Wireless Festival and the South Facing Festival. The park is Grade II* listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

Crystal Palace is an area in south London, England, named after the Crystal Palace Exhibition building, which stood in the area from 1854 until it was destroyed by fire in 1936. Approximately 7 miles (11 km) south-east of Charing Cross, it includes one of the highest points in London, at 367 feet (112 m), offering views over the capital. The area has no defined boundaries and straddles five London boroughs and three postal districts, although there is a Crystal Palace electoral ward and Crystal Palace Park in the London Borough of Bromley. It forms a part of the greater area known as Upper Norwood, and is contiguous with the areas of Anerley, Dulwich Wood, Gipsy Hill, Penge, South Norwood and Sydenham. Until development began in the 19th century, and before the arrival of the Crystal Palace, the area was known as Sydenham Hill. The Norwood Ridge and an historic oak tree were used to mark parish boundaries. The area is represented by three parliamentary constituencies, four London Assembly constituencies and fourteen local councillors. After the Crystal Palace burned down in 1936, the site of the building and its grounds became Crystal Palace Park, the location of the National Sports Centre which contains an athletics track, stadium and other sports facilities. Crystal Palace Park has also been used as the setting for a number of concerts and films, such as The Italian Job and The Pleasure Garden and contains the Crystal Palace Park Concert Platform, in place since 1997. Two television transmitter masts make the district a landmark location, visible from many parts of Greater London. Local landmarks include the Crystal Palace Triangle, a shopping district made up of three streets forming a triangle; Westow Park, a smaller park that lies off the triangle to the south west of Crystal Palace Park; and the Stambourne Woodland Walk. A pneumatic railway was briefly trialled in the area in 1864. Once the railways arrived, Crystal Palace was eventually served by two railway stations, the high level and low level stations, built to handle the large volume of passengers visiting the exhibition building. After the Palace was destroyed by fire, and with railway travel declining, passenger numbers fell and the high level station was closed in 1954 and demolished seven years later. Rail services gradually declined, and for a period in the 1960s and 1970s, there were plans to construct an urban motorway through the area as part of the London Ringways plan. With rising passenger numbers, additional London Overground services began stopping at the station and a major station redevelopment in 2012 led to proposals to extend the Croydon Tramlink service to the railway and bus stations. Crystal Palace was named in the Sunday Times newspaper's top ten list of "the best places to live in London" of 2016. In April 2022 Crystal Palace was named the best place to live in London by the Sunday Times.

The National Sports Centre at Crystal Palace in south London, England is a large sports centre and outdoor athletics stadium. It was opened in 1964 in Crystal Palace Park, close to the site of the former Crystal Palace Exhibition building which had been destroyed by fire in 1936, and is on the same site as the former FA Cup Final venue which was used here between 1895 and 1914. It was one of the five National Sports Centres, run on behalf of Sport England, but responsibility was transferred to the London Development Agency (now GLA Land and Property) and is managed by Greenwich Leisure Limited, under their Better brand logo. The athletics stadium has a capacity of 15,500, which can be increased to 24,000 with temporary seating. It hosts international athletics meetings. As well as sporting events, the stadium has played host to a number of live open air concerts, by artists such as Coldplay, Bruce Springsteen, Sex Pistols and Depeche Mode.

The 1911 Festival of Empire was the biggest single event held at The Crystal Palace in London since its opening. It opened on 12 May and was one of the events to celebrate the coronation of King George V. The original intention had been that Edward VII would open it in 1910, however, this was postponed after his death shortly before the planned opening day. The Festival contained a display of landscapes and exhibits from the British Empire, mainly the dominion countries, to encourage emigration to those nations; and it contained a large scale pageant dramatising British history. It was described at the time as ‘a social gathering of the British family’ encouraging the ‘firmer welding of those invisible bonds which hold together the greatest empire the world has ever known’. It has since been described as the ‘ultimate imperialist propaganda showcase’.

The Crystal Palace Park Concert Platform, formerly the Crystal Palace Bowl, is an outdoor stage and performance venue in Crystal Palace Park in the London Borough of Bromley.

The Crystal Palace Dinosaurs are a series of sculptures of dinosaurs and other extinct animals, incorrect by modern standards, in the London borough of Bromley's Crystal Palace Park. Commissioned in 1852 to accompany the Crystal Palace after its move from the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, they were unveiled in 1854 as the first dinosaur sculptures in the world. The models were designed and sculpted by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins under the scientific direction of Sir Richard Owen, representing the latest scientific knowledge at the time. The models, also known as Dinosaur Court, were classed as Grade II listed buildings from 1973, extensively restored in 2002, and upgraded to Grade I listed in 2007. The models represent 15 genera of extinct animals, only three of which are true 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. Today, the models are notable for representing the scientific inaccuracies of early paleontology, the result of improperly reconstructed fossils and the nascent nature of the science in the 19th century, with the Iguanodon and Megalosaurus models being particularly singled out.

Crystal Palace railway station is a Network Rail and London Overground station in the London Borough of Bromley in south London. It is located in the Anerley area between the town centres of Crystal Palace and Penge, 8 miles 56 chains (14.0 km) from London Victoria. It is one of two stations built to serve the site of the 1851 exhibition building, the Crystal Palace, when it was moved from Hyde Park to Sydenham Hill after 1851. The station was opened on 10 June 1854 by the West End of London and Crystal Palace Railway (WEL&CPR) to take the crowds to the relocated Palace. It was formerly known as Crystal Palace (Low Level) to differentiate it from the nearby and now largely demolished Crystal Palace (High Level) railway station. The station serves trains running between London Bridge and London Victoria in addition to services terminating at Beckenham Junction and Sutton. Since 23 May 2010, the station has also been a terminus of the East London Line of the London Overground. This has been the catalyst for plans for a substantial redevelopment of the station.

Crystal Palace School of Art, Science, and Literature, also known as Crystal Palace Company's School of Art, (1854–1936) was opened in 1854 by the Crystal Palace Company as a new enterprise, to occupy part of its buildings when it re-erected the Crystal Palace in suburban Sydenham in 1853. The civil engineer and later first director of the Royal College of Music, George Grove, was appointed secretary. It was a part of the great movements for educational and social reform in nineteenth century Britain. The main buildings were destroyed by fire in 1936.

Crystal Palace Park Cricket Ground was a cricket ground in Crystal Palace in south-east London. It was located in Crystal Palace Park in the shadow of The Crystal Palace. The ground was established on 3 June 1857 and used for first-class cricket between 1864 and 1906. The site of the ground was part of the county of Kent when it was first established and it was initially used by Kent County Cricket Club in the 1860s before becoming the main ground for London County Cricket Club between 1900 and 1904. The site of the ground is now in the London Borough of Bromley and forms part of the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre.

Penge was a civil parish and a local government district located to the southeast of London, England. It included the settlements of Penge, Anerley and part of Crystal Palace. It was part of the London postal district, Metropolitan Police District and, from 1933, the London Passenger Transport Area. In 1965 the urban district was abolished by the London Government Act 1963 and it became part of Greater London, being combined with other districts to form the London Borough of Bromley.

The Gorilla sculpture by David Wynne stands beside the Lower Lake in Crystal Palace Park, in Bromley in south-east London. Completed in 1961 and installed in 1962, the black marble sculpture depicts Guy the Gorilla, a western lowland gorilla brought from West Africa to London Zoo in 1947. It became a Grade II listed structure in 2016.

Penge West railway station is located in Penge, a district of the London Borough of Bromley in south London. The station is operated by London Overground, with Overground and Southern trains serving the station. Thameslink and some Southern services pass through the station. It is 7 miles 15 chains (7.19 miles, 11.57 km) down the line from London Bridge, in Travelcard Zone 4. Penge East station is a short walk away and has services to London Victoria, Bromley South and Orpington. Crystal Palace station is also within walking distance and has more frequent trains to London Bridge.Penge West station forms part of the new southbound route of the London Overground East London line that opened on 23 May 2010. Penge West station provides convenient access to The Dinosaur Park via the south gate of the Crystal Palace Park.