Crystal Palace

The first of the Trust's new Winter Lecture Series was held on 8th October at the Museum of Garden History, Lambeth, which proved to be an excellent venue, and was well attended. Helen Brown, a founder member of the London Parks and Gardens Trust who formerly worked for Bromley Council, the hapless inheritors of Crystal Palace Park following the abolition of the Greater London Council, delivered a thought-provoking and well-illustrated talk on the gardens of Crystal Palace.

The Palace, the raison d'être of the park, was destroyed by fire in 1936. Although most of the bus routes of south London still seem to focus on Crystal Palace, as though the fire had never happened, without the Palace there is no focus to the park and no very good reason to go there at present. The sports facilities are outdated and badly sited, cutting the park in two and destroying any spatial or aesthetic unity. While the Extinct Animals have been carefully restored (although the effect is spoiled by the obtrusive safety fencing), the Terraces, of a Roman scale and grandeur, are derelict and all but abandoned. However, the London Development Agency has commissioned from Latz and Partners (designers of Landschaftspark Duisburg-nord in the Ruhr, which incorporates abandoned steel works) a new Master Plan, which was launched on 17th October, accompanied by an exhibition at Crystal Palace railway station from 18th to 31st October (see http://www.crystalpalacepark.net). The Conservation Management Plan has been written by two members of LPGT, Sarah Couch and Hazel Conway, who have also worked on the Master Plan.