Hello People
Today my journey across the 28 Districts of South East
London takes me to Crystal Palace Park. Not much of a hidden gem I’ll admit,
but the sun was shining and my head was throbbing from drinking too many London
Prides the night before, so I thought I could probably use the fresh air.
The Crystal Palace Park was built by Sir Joseph Paxton's
Crystal Palace Company between 1852 and 1855. The park was built for the
relocated and expanded Crystal Palace, a huge iron and glass structure that had
housed the 1851 Great Exhibition in Hyde Park.
Sir Joseph Paxton must have been doing cartwheels when the
Tender to move the Crystal Palace came up, seeing as he already owned a firm
called the Crystal Palace Company. I bet
the guy that owns Crystal windows wishes he’d been a bit quicker off the mark getting
his company name registered. Sir Joe took the decision to build his park in an area
called Crystal Palace; again it must have seemed like fate.
I spent my first 20 minutes in the Park, strolling by the
lake, enjoying the sunshine, and eventually I came to the entrance of the maze.
The Crystal Palace Park Maze is famous in its own right, as it is said to be the
spot where one of our nation’s greatest institutions was founded, the Girl
Guides. The story goes that In 1909 during a Boy Scout rally held in the park,
a group of girls approached Robert Baden Powell, the founder of the Scouts, and
requested that he set up ‘something for the girls’, I was a cub scout in my younger
days and loved it, so I can completely understand why they’d have wanted to get
involved. I guess the logical thing would probably have been for Sir Robert to just
let the girls join in the game of rounders the boy scouts were playing at the
time, but you don’t become a great Briton by taking easy decisions, and Sir Robert
came 13th in a BBC poll for Britain’s Greatest Britain in 2002, so Sir
Rob created the girl guides instead. The Crystal Palace Park Maze was
completely redesigned and renovated a few years ago to mark the launch of Girlguiding’s
Centenary celebrations, so they clearly still agree with his decision and that’s
good enough for me.
I remembered hearing years ago that the way to get through a
maze is to always keep the wall to your left, armed with this knowledge I boldly
stepped in. Walking through the maze I quickly passed a woman in a raincoat
walking the opposite way, shortly after her I passed a man and his young son,
shortly after them, I passed a trendy looking couple with a small dog. I passed
the same people 5 minutes later, and three more times after that in the half
hour I spent wondering around the maze. By now I was desperate to be free so I
could go to the toilet and have a Tuna and Mayonnaise sandwich, so I stood
still for a while and tried to think of a plan, after a moment or two I heard
some voices from the other side of the wall, it was the man and his young son.
Son “I’m tired Daddy”
Father “Just keep the wall to our left and we will be out in
no time”
Son “You said that ages ago Daddy, I want to go live with
mummy”
Their voices faded away, but soon afterwards I heard what I
believe were the trendy couple and their dog.
Trendy Man “We just need to keep the wall to our left and
we’ll be fine”
Trendy Woman “You keep saying that Lucas but which wall do
you mean? There are two of them?”
Trendy Man “Look don’t get sarcastic with me Verity, you
were the one who wanted to go through this bloody maze.”
Dog “Grrr”
Trendy Woman “Well you never want to do anything, how can I
know what you want if you don’t tell me?”
Trendy man “Well I wanted to spend the weekend at my
parents”
Trendy woman “Oh fine, throw that in my face again”
Trendy man “Well you asked”
Trendy woman “Worst day of your life was the day they cut
that umbilical cord, wasn’t it Lucas?”
Dog “Grrr”
As their voices faded I sank into despair, fortunately I had
my training to fall back on from my days as Cub Scout in Rotherhithe. Using
some flat stones as shovels, I dug a tunnel which took me as far as the
periphery wall, once there I was able to make a rope out of some leaves, twigs,
some of my hair, a few crow feathers and an old rope someone had left lying
around. I tied a loop in one end, lassoed a nearby branch, pulled myself to freedom
and headed straight to the Crystal Palace Park café for a nice cup of tea and a
Tuna Mayonnaise sandwich, but I must admit to feeling guilty about not trying
to go back to help anyone else in the maze, I desperately hope that the woman
in the raincoat, and the man and his son got out ok, although I suspect that the
trendy couple are either dead, or have eaten the dog.
Once I finished my sandwich I was able to start my exploring
again, being a 31 year old man on his own I decided not to visit the child’s
swing park, it might have looked a bit weird, and I doubt that any of the
children in the park would have been strong enough to push me on the swings.
Besides as you get older you develop an air of sophistication which stops you
from enjoying childish things like swing parks, so instead I ran straight over
to see the dinosaurs!
The dinosaurs were designed and sculpted by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins under the scientific direction of Sir Richard Owen, representing the latest scientific knowledge at the time. I recommend you download Darwin and the dinosaurs (http://www.audiotrails.co.uk/dinosaurs/) a free online audio guide to your phone to find out about the history of how Hawkins and Owen set about creating the world’s first dinosaur theme park in an age when most of the people who went to see it, would have believed literally in the bible and the story of creation. To those people those models must have been sensational.
The dinosaurs were designed and sculpted by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins under the scientific direction of Sir Richard Owen, representing the latest scientific knowledge at the time. I recommend you download Darwin and the dinosaurs (http://www.audiotrails.co.uk/dinosaurs/) a free online audio guide to your phone to find out about the history of how Hawkins and Owen set about creating the world’s first dinosaur theme park in an age when most of the people who went to see it, would have believed literally in the bible and the story of creation. To those people those models must have been sensational.
I could go on and on about how great this place is, but I’m
starting to get hungry again, so if you’ll excuse me, I’m off for another cup
of tea and a slice of berry pie.
References
Dulwichonview.org.uk
Urban75.org
http://www.girlguiding.org.uk/about_us/crystal_palace_park_maze.aspx
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