this is a question for falkor or anyone else who is in the know;
my dad has asked me to find out anything i can about the crystal palace motor racing track,he used to go there many moons ago and would like to know what anyone else remembers about it or[falkor this is where you come in]what documentation/photos etc are in existance on the subject.
i think it was there until the early[?] 70s,i also know that it was considered dangerous[lots of brick walls]maybe that is why the plug was pulled?
I moved to Longton Avenue, Sydenham on the Thursday before August Bank Holiday in 1969.
On that Saturday we awoke to hear the sound of racing motor engines as Saturday was the start of race practice. This lasted until about 5 pm and recommenced on Sunday morning, continuing all day. Of course, come Monday there was a further practice session in the morning with the race proper in the afternoon.
Being on the same level of the hill as the Concert Bowl the noise was excruciating and we wondered whether we had made a mistake by falling in love with the Avenue and with Wells Park. We learned over the next three years not to invite friends over to visit on August Bank Holiday weekend - instead we made every endeavour to get ourselves invited out of town.
I and, I would suggest, most of my neighbours did not shed a tear when the racing finished at Crystal Palace in 1972
as a child i lived in downham when it was still going and you could clearly hear the racing from the palace .so it must have been really loud next door.
couldbeanyone wrote:my father told me that there used to be motorcycle grass track racing at Crystal Palace!
similar to speedway but on the grass, racing on an oval course.
Crystal Palace had a full on speedway team (The Glaziers..........how original, they must've been up all night thinking of that nickname!) that raced on a purpose built shale oval roughly where the athletics track is now.
Don't know if it's still there, but there used to be a repro print of the cover of a programme from a Speedway meeting held between The Glaziers and the Southampton Saints hanging up in the Dulwich Woodhouse.
As for the race track, it featured on the BBC filler series "100 Great Sporting Moments" a few years ago, when they showed a saloon car race from one of the last meetings, and if you watch the original 'Italian Job', the "You were only meant to blow the bloody doors off" scene was filmed along the startline area.
as a child i lived in downham when it was still going and you could clearly hear the racing from the palace .so it must have been really loud next door.
Martin, is there anything you can tell me about the history of Downham? Do you remember a cinema along Bromley Road that got demolished? It was at one of the corners before Downham High Street I think, but I don't know which one... What about an open air swimming pool in Bellingham?
hmmm picture's. no i dont remember one there. our nearest was the abc at catford.(now gone of course) but as per pool,we used it as kids and used to go skinny dipping after the pub closed in about 1974-6
In the course of research for something else, I came across the footage of the race track used in the BBC series "100 Great Sporting Moments", as I previously mentioned, so I thought I would share; might interest a few..................
Hi
I lived at Crystal Palace as a kid, and I can remember hearing the racing going on on a Sunday. This was in the sixties. I think the track is the road that leads to the back of the sports centre, it would have carried on around behind the maze and back again, I think!
The Eagle wrote:If I recall, the whole of the track is still there.
Not quite, there's a bit missing between the sports centre and the south tower that's now under a car park, but, apart from that, you can still walk the rest of the course.
We moved back to Sydenham in 1957 and every year the noise of the cars and bikes used to drive my Mum nuts We lived in Lawrie Park gardens so it was fairly close.
Hello
I lived in Sydenham from 1942 until 1958 and remember Crystal Palace motor racing circuit very well. The best races were the ones with the Cooper racing cars which had 500cc Norton motorcycle engines, the machines were all faily standard so the race depended purely on the capability of the driver. The problem was there were very little safety features if you "ran out of road" then you could end up hitting a very hard railway sleeper.
ragards brian
leaf wrote:this is a question for falkor or anyone else who is in the know;
my dad has asked me to find out anything i can about the crystal palace motor racing track,he used to go there many moons ago and would like to know what anyone else remembers about it or[falkor this is where you come in]what documentation/photos etc are in existance on the subject.
i think it was there until the early[?] 70s,i also know that it was considered dangerous[lots of brick walls]maybe that is why the plug was pulled?
