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Grade I monsters
As part of the relocation of The Crystal Palace to Sydenham, Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins was commissioned the first ever life-size models of dinosaurs and other extinct animals, launched on New Years Eve 1853. They are one of the strangest pieces of Victoriana in London, built around a lake in the park.

The Dinosaurs sparked a huge controversy at the time, and their anticipation of Darwinism outraged the educated and the religious. The study of dinosaurs was in its infancy; the word ‘dinosaur’ was only coined in 1842 by Richard Owen, curator of the Hunterian Museum, who acted as an advisor to Hawkins.

What must have seemed like a white-hot fusion between art and science now looks a bit silly – especially the idea that these animals could have been domesticated around a duck pond. As further and fuller discoveries of the species were made, experts looked at them suspiciously as early as 1895. The dinosaurs are lumpy and improbable; although in fairness to Hawkins, working with concrete must have been problematic.

The Victorian pre-historic theme park fell into disrepair as the years went by, a process aided by the fire that destroyed the Crystal Palace itself in 1936. The visibility of the models became obscured by overgrown foliage, and walking around the lake, concrete heads would loom suddenly out of darkness. The installation has since been restored in the 1950s and again in 2002, with the original colours re-applied as closely as possible and the addition of two new pterodactyls.

You will also find several ratty missives posted on the internet from disappointed Americans who were expecting some sort of Disneyland. Tough, the dinosaurs are brilliant and the sculptures now join the exclusive 2.5 per cent of total entries listed Grade I.