On a chilly February morning, while down in London, I thought I might go and visit some old friends I hadn’t seen for a while. A bunch of old dinosaurs I’d last bumped into a least a decade ago. Now, I’m not being insulting with my old dinosaur remark, as these friends are a bunch of Victorian models of dinosaurs. Models of what Victorian scientists thought dinosaurs looked like based on the knowledge that they had at that time, so not particularly accurate. Certainly not like the dinosaurs we would recognise today, but rather just a group of monstrous lizards and fishy like things.
Arriving at Crystal Palace Station, I walked up the rather wide, grand stairs that lead up and out of the building and to the entrance of the park. Then walking up and around a rather muddy path, slippery and slidey from all the February rain, I made my way to the ponds where the dinosaurs live. And there they were in all their faded glory.
Unfortunately, time hasn’t been kind to the dinosaurs, but then they have been strutting around their island or sitting in the surrounding waters for over a hundred and fifty years. They were built between 1854 and 1855 to accompany the relocation of the Crystal Palace building from Hyde Park, where it had stood for the Great Exhibition of 1851, to a new park at Sydenham Hill. The sculptor who was tasked with creating them was Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, while the landscape, or ‘Geological Court’ in which they would sit, was designed by Joseph Paxton.
The dinosaurs at Crystal Palace represent an early interpretation of extinct life and were the first attempt to create full-size three-dimensional models of these creatures. They were based on interpretations of fossils and bones that Waterhouse Hawkins had examined, though he also consulted several experts in palaeontology at that time, including Richard Owen. Together they worked out what the animals should look like, though if no agreement could be reached, Waterhouse Hawkins did the best he could with what little information he had.
Altogether Waterhouse Hawkins made thirty-seven models of dinosaurs and other extinct animals. He would have carried on making many more if financial constraints had not put a stop to the project.
On completion, the models were quite a hit with the public, who could access the island they were on and marvel at the size of these monstrous beasts.
As scientific knowledge on dinosaurs increased, the models at Crystal Palace became seen as something of an embarrassment given their inaccuracies. They are now, however, seen as important objects in the history of science that represent the Victorian understanding of the prehistoric world. In 2007 they were classed as Grade I listed buildings and restoration work is ongoing to preserve them.
Wandering along the pathways around the lake surrounding the dinosaur island, I passed numerous families and groups of tourists who had come to see these fabulous old creatures. Most seemed to love them, posing for photos with a dinosaur or two standing behind them, though one small child did pass me howling in disappointment – ‘…but they’re not alive. I wanted to see real ones.’ Sorry mate, I thought, but you’re quite a few hundred million years too late for that.
After a good wander around, I left the Skulferatu that had accompanied me resting on the eyelid of the Hylaeosaurus head sitting at the start of the dinosaur trail.
The coordinates for the Skulferatu are -
Latitude 51.417273
Longitude -0.068557
what3words: mixed.smug.skirt
I used the following sources for information on the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs –
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