The Crystal Palace - London's longest running 'Soap'
In 1852 following the fantastic success of the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, an enterprising group of businessmen, including some of the Great Exhibition's committee and Paxton himself, pulled off one of the most audacious coups in London history. They bought up the remains of the Crystal Palace, the glass structure which housed the contents of the 'Manufacture of Nations', and free of planning restrictions, rebuilt it almost twice the size on a 350 feet high ridge overlooking London at Sydenham to which they then ran a railway branch line to service it. They added what Walt Disney would a century later term 'attractions' and sat back and awaited the profits.
A devastating fire, under-insurance and waning public interest pushed the venture towards bankruptcy. It was only sentiment and patriotism and perhaps a national guilty conscience over the neglected role of Queen Victoria's Prince Consort which rescued it for the first time from oblivion. A generation later it needed to be rescued again and when it was finally destroyed by a devastating fire in November 1936 at a time when the edifice and its contents were looking decidedly threadbare, it seemed an overdue yet appropriate end to what at times was a remarkable enterprise.
The financial crisis of the '30's, the outbreak of war and the austerity which followed precluded making any kind of plans for the future of Crystal Palace. Following the success of the 1951 Festival of Britain, which marked the centenary of the Great Exhibition, hopes were raised by the idea of establishing a National Exhibition Centre on the site to compliment the National Recreation Centre built by Sir Gerald Barry, fresh from his triumph on the South Bank (of which the Festival Hall still survives). It was at this point that the tradition of protest at Sydenham evolved. There were fears about access and transport, despite the fact that the high-level branch line was still operating, but the protest and procrastination allowed the city of Birmingham to steal a march on London and go ahead with a scheme for its own exhibition centre.
In 1979 a band of enthusiastic Sydenham residents staged an exhibition of the Crystal Palace's former glories at the National Recreation Centre. Attended by two thousand visitors and with the interest and enthusiasm thereby generated, it led to the formation of the Crystal Palace Foundation. The Foundation set about conducting an urban excavation, shifting tons of earth which covered the site and gradually uncovered the terraces. Later it opened the museum in one of the original buildings which had survived the fire.
Twenty years then passed and it was the threat that something was actually going to be done about the site by Bromley Council which galvanised the local population once again. The application for a multiplex cinema, restaurants and car parking on the prominent top site beside Crystal Palace Parade seemed to horrify the majority and protests groups formed, united and eventually triumphed and the application was withdrawn. The various groups which had so successfully cooperated in their protest now began to fall out with each other as each pursued a different agenda for the future of the Crystal Palace site and the Park.
But there were other factors which would muddy the water. The area surrounding both the Park and the site is shared between Southwark, Bromley, and Croydon councils with Lewisham and Lambeth edging in as well. Over the years, Croydon Council had approved numerous applications for change of use from shops to restaurants in the area although there was insufficient space for parking. The only viable space had been the old high level railway line and station area which had lain empty for years below the Crystal Palace Parade but which was eventually given building permission by Southwark Council after being used for a lengthy period as a temporary housing site.
Depending on your viewpoint, a Good Fairy or a Demon King, in the form of the London Development Agency then entered the story and announced that following negotiations with Bromley Council it would take over the running of the National Sports Centre in March 2006, and have an option to take over the rest of the Park by 2009. It is currently proposing to redevelop the park and rebuild the sports centre at a cost of between £90-100 million. Some of this sum it expects to fund by developing parts of the site for housing. As these plans include the provision of a 150-200 space car park, the traders in area are delighted. However, campaigners for the Park are appalled and are contesting the developments with especial venom being reserved for the proposed development at the Norwood Triangle end. Local residents meanwhile are alarmed at the proposed development at the Rockhills end of the Park close to the top of Fountain Drive, although some appear to be mollified by the fact that the development is intended to be for individual, architect designed dwellings.
According to the press release, the LDA's proposals to rejuvenate Crystal Palace Park received 82 per cent support. The devil, however, appears to be in the detail. To confuse the issue still further there has been a sudden new initiative at Crystal Palace Park which the Dulwich Society's Vice-Chairman, Ian McInnes explains:
The London Development Agency is currently running a competition for a new multi million pound sports centre near Crystal Palace station which could mean the end of the Grade II* listed National Sports Centre. The Twentieth Century Society, with active support from the Victorian Society and the Garden History Society, has put forward an alternative proposal to show how new sports facilities could be provided in Crystal Palace Park without any need for the demolition of the threatened NSC. The C20 Society hopes to encourage the LDA to take a broader view on the park and to view their involvement as being a positive opportunity to not only save its best building but to actively integrate additional state of the art sports facilities into the park and bring back to life the park's rich and varied history.
Architect Julian Harrap's alternative scheme shows a new Sports Centre as a single structure within the re-created landscape of the Victorian park located over the footprint of the archaeological remains of the Crystal Palace above the surviving terrace. The new building would respect and protect the archaeological remains of the Palace and is capable of providing financial subsidy to the other sports facilities in the park. The National Sports Centre would be refurbished and turned into a pavilion whose great hall could either be retained as existing with a new pool, or alternatively converted to non-swimming sports use.
The demolition of the peripheral less significant buildings and much of the surrounding tarmac will enhance the natural elements of the park. Besides the re-created Victorian landscape the park will also incorporate several layers of sports history like the memory of the former football pitch or the reinstatement of the former motor racing circuit as an access armature.
The scheme demonstrates that a range of more imaginative plans for the country's most important municipal park are long overdue and that the LDA should reconsider its current proposals and be encouraged to take a more holistic approach both to future sports provision and this important historic landscape.
So dear reader, you can see that this long running 'Soap' has still plenty of mileage in it yet!
