Visited on Tuesday 4 December 2012
The journey I’d
planned for this excursion was intended to be a slightly unusual sight seeing
tour that would take in some of the East End, Bermondsey, Peckham, and Upper
Norwood – a bit off the beaten tourist track obviously, but a trip through some
of the more … practical areas of London. It’s certainly not the quickest way to
get to Crystal Palace (it took me 2 hours), but it was pretty interesting. It
also afforded the opportunity to see what other people who aren’t at work do on
a Tuesday morning, and I’m afraid to say that was a bit bleak in places. The
254 took me from Clapton to Aldgate, via an unexpected diversion down Bethnal
Green road. This part was quite cool – there’s a real vibrancy to the area,
with lots of shops selling brightly coloured fabrics and sarees, a large range
of restaurants and cafes serving Indian, Turkish, and Chinese food, and a
general air of rather haphazard energy and optimism.
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| Boldly going where no brass pig has gone before. Peckham. |
The 78 between Aldgate
and Peckham was a different story. You pass over Tower Bridge, which still
excites me although I’ve lived in London for more than ten years now, but south
of the river things take a rather miserable turn. By the time I arrived in
Peckham I’d passed numerous shops selling cheap tat, dilapidated-looking
housing estates, and everyone on the street looked very unhappy. The wait for
the 363 to Crystal Palace was fairly unpleasant too – a gaggle of hooded young
men walked into me, and a row broke out between a mother and her son because he
wanted to go to Chicken Cottage while she wanted to go to KFC for lunch (more
on this subject later). However, I had the rather wonderful Frightened Rabbit
on the headphones (a recommendation from today’s companion, MinusTheMatt) and
it was lovely and sunny, so my good mood remained undented.
Crystal Palace train
station (the rendezvous point) has had a makeover since I was last there, and
now houses a rather fancy café off the much-improved ticket hall. Given the
extreme cold and time elapsed since breakfast, we decided to kickstart our walk
with a coffee and scotch egg, which were a bit pricey but delicious.
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| Sure only likes the egg bit, obviously |
We began with the
famous dinosaurs, installed in the park in 1854 by fossil expert Benjamin
Waterhouse Hawkins and Richard Owen, who was the founder of the Natural History
Museum and coiner of the term ‘dinosaur’. For some reason we’d been expecting
some crappy fibreglass monsters, but in fact the pre-historic creatures
are represented by some rather beautiful concrete statues, posed in attitudes
of hunting and roaring and general dino-conduct. The joke about them is that
they are based on contemporary research and fossil analysis and therefore don’t
really look much like dinosaurs as we now know them. Even so, they are quite
believable as long-extinct lizardy things and have been set very pleasingly on
and around a small lake.
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| Modern beast in foreground, extinct ones behind |
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| Quite beautiful even if inaccurate |
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| Funny lizards on the prowl |
After taking some
photos and admiring the beasts, we decided to walk around said lake. The
modern-day animals and birds are obviously quite used to people – a flock of
ducks quacked themselves over to where we paused briefly, clearly hoping we
would throw them some bits of food. As we moved away we noticed the reason why
the poor buggers might have been so hungry – sitting on the fence, bold as
brass, was the fattest squirrel I have ever seen!
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| Who ate all the nuts Squirrel Nutkin? You did. |
The path winds round
past the site of the first ever FA Cup Final (now just open grassland) and the
National Sports Centre, a sports and leisure complex built in the 1960s and
showing its age now. We also came across a curious memorial, which had no
information board to explain it, and only by squinting and leaning across the
railing could I see that it was a monument to the men of Crystal Palace lost in
the First World War. We couldn’t really fathom the significance of the fishes,
but I rather liked them – they are the same as those found on the big lampposts
along the Embankment in town.
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| First World War memorial |
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| Majestic |
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| Drive with trees forming an arch |
Further on we came to
the maze – London’s biggest – and recently done up in honour of the Girl Guides
Association, which was founded in this area in the early 20th Century. MinusTheMatt has never been in a maze before, and I think I have only
once when I was very little, so we decided to pit our competitive wits against
the passageways framed by 3-foot-high hedges, certain that we’d reach the
middle pretty easily. Regrettably this was not the case – in fact the damn
thing led us on a super-circuitous route to nowhere, eventually spitting us out
right where we came in! It was fun though, and thankfully there’s an ‘escape
gate’ that you can use to walk straight to the middle section.
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| We shall win |
Moving on, we passed
the red oxidised steel concert stage that has apparently become known as the
Rusty Laptop. It was built in 1998 but is now pretty much abandoned, which is a
great shame – set in the natural bowled amphitheatre of the hill, it would be perfect
for summer gigs.
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| Nobody, playing to an audience of ducks |
The last part of our
walk through the park brought us to the top of the hill and the site of the
Crystal Palace itself. It was originally constructed for the Great Exhibition
of 1851 (the success of which funded the V&A, the Natural History Museum
and the Science Museum), and was moved here from Hyde Park in 1854. Sadly it
burned down in the 1930s and all that remains are the terraces and stone work
upon which the spectacular steel and glass structure once stood. It had been a
hugely popular venue – the Triennial Handel Festival was held there from 1857, and
there were dog shows, brass band contests, dirt-track cycling, a permanent
cinema and a firework display every Thursday during the summer. The cause of
the fire was never discovered, but it gutted the place within half an hour,
despite the best efforts of over 500 firemen. All that remained were the two
towers, but these too were dismantled in 1941 lest they provided too
conspicuous a landmark to the Enemy. I find this kind of thing somewhat
melancholy – the spirit of Victorian adventure, pursuit of knowledge and
tendency to erect rather splendid buildings deserves a better memorial than
some grassy terraces next to a wind-swept carpark, overlooked by the 219-metre
high BBC transmitter tower.
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| As it was in 1854 |
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| As it is now (with multiple patefaci) |
There is a café in the
park, but it was near the dinosaurs and thusly in the wrong place for our
purposes, so we headed to the Crystal Palace triangle in search of
refreshments. The Sparrowhawk, a fairly new pub on Westow Hill, provided us with
exactly what we desired – a glass of wine to warm up AND cakes. At £19.20, this
was a very expensive combination but ohhhhh they were good.
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| culturewinecake |
Apple Crumble Tart
with Custard (MinusTheMatt)
“The pastry is
pleasingly thin with a good level of crunch, and the custard is creamy and
vanilla-y. Very well balanced combination of the apple and the crumble
elements. I could take or leave the toffee ice cream but it adds a rather nice
cold contrast to the hot tart. This is one of the best versions of this type of
cake I’ve ever had. 8 out of 10.”
Vanilla Cheese Cake
(thepateface)
“Well I was not
expecting this extremely tart raspberry ice cream but it is a rather wonderful
foil to the creamy and super-delicious cheesecake. The texture is amazing, and
the base is perfect – thin and crunchy and crucially not too greasy. Great
balance of flavours. 9 out of 10.”
We were served by a
deferential and pleasant young Canadian chap, who I managed to freak out a
little bit by rather ostentatiously writing notes about the food in my moleskine.
Hehe. The wine served its purpose and we repaired to MTM’s very own palace for
some nice chat and a look at the very impressive 3D work he’s recently been
doing in his new job.
The route home took
me, via the extravagance of a Patebus (aka a taxi, with a most interesting and
chatty driver), to Old Street for a nice drink with A of the K in a pub
favoured for its miniature Christmas trees and fake snow in the window (of
course).
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| Sure fashions himself a sort of fake igloo |
The final leg involved the 55 to Clapton. There was a great moment
when a teenage girl, who was stuffing her face with a box of something
extraordinarily malodorous from the Chicken Cottage on Mare Street, said to her
male companion “Bruv, what IZ that chick eatin?? It f*ckin stinks man!” Note to
self, do not eat humous on a bus again.
All in all it was a
lovely day, and I can thoroughly recommend Crystal Palace park as a place to
visit. I’m glad I chose it to be part of the culturecake project, since it is
so closely connected to several of the project’s other destinations, as
mentioned. The park itself is a great place to go in the summer for a picnic,
and hopefully one day somebody will come up with a plan to revive the concert
stage.
