Archeology or vandalism?

[outcast]

This news is second hand and therefore must be verified but as time is of the essence, I am asking people to be vigilant.

Apparently the archeology in the park which included digging trenches has not turned out as we may have expected. A friend told me yesterday that the trench resembles a quarry. It is huge and was dug with bulldozers. My friend saw a brick arch from the original basements that was uncovered and he was excited by this. He took some photos and went back to take more. Unfortunately it seemed that the bulldozer had, by then, demolished the arch!

Now I can see on one hand that if the LDA want to go ahead with their masterplan, they must attempt to carry our at least a survey of what is there. What I didn't understand twas that after they had done that, they would destroy the foundations of the original Palace. The last plan for the top site failed and the LDA's may also fail. This would mean that the remains had been destroyed for nothing. In the future someone may have unearthed them and used them as an historic feature (as in my opinion they should be)

I did not see this with my own eyes, though the source of the information is usually sound but if this is the case, does it worry others as it does me or am I alone in this?

[BigJim]

You're kiddin, outcast! Are you telling us that they're demolishing bits of history just like that?
I can't get anywhere near the Palace tonight which is a ruddy nuisance cos I'm a dab hand with a spanner and a screwdriver!
Maybe someone from the Palace area can get near to take some snaps. Thanks for the info outcast.

[Juwlz]

Might go up there tonite and take a look.

[Lillylocks]

This is the worst news. Blatant vandalism!!!! If I can get up there tonight too, I will. I'll bring my camera, but my feelings are probably the same as BigJim's.

I was of the opinion that the 1854 Crystal Palace was a building of historic significence?
My friend still has a bit of the Berlin Wall on her window-sill (complete with grafitti) and I have a few goodies as well - such as:
A pink rock from around the tomb of Seti 1 in the Valley of the Kings (which is probably a good few thousand years old)
A beautiful small piece of silver slate from Tintagel Castle (probably about 400 million years old)
A piece of broken basaltic rock from the Giant's Causeway which is around 60 million years old (it broke underfoot).

I have moved house a hundred times since I was 17 years old, and these things have come everywhere with me. They're precious because they're old and part of history.

Oh well - the bulldozers are mashing and bashing bricks up there which are nowhere near as old, but just as important. And just as precious.

[user100]

I am out of town - but if there's a raiding party going on, can someone bag me a sphinx??

[Lillylocks]

Well user100, I've stormed up there, kicked some a** and got your sphinx. Now - where would you like me to put it?

[BigJim]

Suggestions where lillylocks can stick the sphinx coming up. You ready user100? Brace yourself man!!!!!!!!!

[user100]

Just set it down there next to the pterodactyl

Nah, I shouldn't joke about it, its not funny, it really is a crying shame to see these things getting destroyed.

Just don't anyone go steaming in looking for souvenirs, its bad enough.

[Lillylocks]

1. steaming in looking for souvenirs to keep as, er, souvenirs or . .
2. grinding stuff into rubble, therefore doing away with a potential bunfight and avoiding souvenirs collecting dust on mantlepieces.

Not interested in taking away souvenirs to be honest. It would be a good idea to put this Victorian gorgeousness on show to the public so we can at least have the chance to SEE them. But some flaming Phillistine thinks differently of course. I'm having difficulty in thinking that someone can actually allow this to happen, or am I just being naive?

Ho hum . . .

[CPP Consultation]

Dear All,

I was very concerned to hear the comments on this forum about the digs on the palace site and terraces. Since reading your comments I have spoken to the Museum of London Archaeological Service (MoLAS) who are carrying out the digs, English Heritage who have agreed to methodology of the digs and supervise it and Ken Kiss from Crystal Palace Museum who is advising MoLAS.

In general terms, all archaeological excavations (including the said arches) have been bulk excavated using mechanical means in order to minimise the Health & Safety risks of manual handling to personnel under strict supervision by the Museum of London Archaeology Service (MoLAS).

Also, In order to reach the structures, a large volume of material has been excavated. This material is largely rubble, and the park is said to be a dumping ground for rubble from the WWII blitz. This explains why there is a volume of bricks in the areas being backfilled.

Following bulk excavation, the pits/trenches are excavated using hand tools in order to preserve any finds.

Once the finds have been exposed, they are then surveyed, photographed and logged.

Only after the above is complete and agreement is received from MoLAS, English Heritage each excavation is carefully backfilled to the pre-excavation levels. There has been no demolition of archaeological finds during the course of this works.

Further more, I received the following response from Ken Kiss from the Crystal Palace Museum:

"Dear Munish

I felt I must contact you immediately to allay your fears. Having been closely involved with this archeaological dig from the beginning I would like to reasssure you that the work is being carried out to the highest standards by The Museum of London Archeaological Service, a highly respected organisation.

It must be underestood that with such large overburdens of spoil it is essential that this material is initially removed by mechanical means which of course is carried out under very close supervision by the senior archeaologist and when reaching a sensitive area the work is progressed with the use of the traditional hand trowel. Then having photographed and carefully measured each discovery the excavation, following standard proceedures, is carefully backfilled to preserve any structural findings and will be reinstated to the levels that existed prior to the works.”

The digs have been subject of some media attention. Here is a link to a press article in the South London Press:
http://www.crystalpalacepark.net/pages/cuttings.html

If you have any further questions or queries please do not hesitiate Nicholas Elsden, the Senior Archaeologist from Museum of London Archaeology Service.


Mortimer Wheeler House
46 Eagle Wharf Road
London. N1 7ED
Tel: 020 7410 2282
Fax: 020 7410 2201
Email: NElsden@molas.org.uk

Regards,

Munish Chopra
______________________
Crystal Palace Park Consultation Team
munish@localdialogue.com

Tel: 020 7357 6894
Fax: 020 7357 6604
Mob: 07974 330 274

CPP Consultation
Local Dialogue LLP
FREEPOST NAT3717
London
SE1 2TU

www.crystalpalacepark.org

[Lillylocks]

How is everyone? And did anyone go to the park to have a look?

[simon]

I was up there on Tuesday and had a gander. To my untrained eye there were two lightweight diggers working two holes on the lower terrace, away from any above ground orginal fixtures. Didn't look down the holes because of the fencing.
The official response seems reasonable to me.

[kennyb2]

I`m amazed that anything of note has survived on that site,
huge amounts of earthmoving in the war years, several bombs inc flying bombs
the clearance and construction involved in building the TV tower
munitions and vehicle dump in the 1940`s
huge salvage dump for metals
even in the 1960`s I remember a vast construction machinery exhibition on one of the higher terrraces where all sorts of giant earth moving machines showed off their paces
and bomb rubble was dumped anywhere later on
then there was the sports centre, that got a big set of holes dug.

[Lillylocks]

Yes, it's amazing isn't it, kennyb2? But I suppose cream will always rise to the top eventualy.
I was in the park yesterday and also had a look at the site. Two abandoned diggers sat besides a big hole, but I couldn't see too much more than that.
It was a horrible day weather-wise yesterday, but there were plenty of people walking around, and groups of teenagers just lounging on the sphinxes, chatting. Even when the rain came down no-one ran for cover. It's got a lovely feel to it, that park.

[tulse hill terry]

The latest and largest of the "archaeological" trenches does indeed resemble an open cast mine. It is situated roughly on the site of the northern third of the Italian Court, and the Elizabethan Vestibule. The Crystal Palace building itself was of course glass and cast iron, but the interior of the north nave especially, consisted of architectural courts with brick shells and nearly all decorative features were plaster.

This trench, the largest excavation surely of the actual Crystal Palace site, has exposed much brick and rubble, but also large lumps of plaster that could not possibly come from any domestic building, dumped as blitz rubble.

The trench does not look anything like an archaeological dig, the soil is sandy and loose and very prone to sliding. The use of diggers can be clearly seen to smashed these lumps of plaster as fast as they are exposed. The purpose of archaeology is to uncover evidence within context. As well as destroying evidence, I cannot see that any useful archaeological information can be extracted, and that whoever is "supervising" this site is no better than the souveneir hunters picking over this site, unprotected as it is at the weekend.

Destroying historic material and context is not archaeology but a quest for bits of marble to put in a museum without a roof.

[Falkor]

Ken Kiss showed me some photos of that excavation and it looked intrigueing to say the least. Apparently some people were mistaken that some brick arching had been demolished during the excavations, when really the scene was misinterpreted overnight by somebody who went on to spread false rumours; in reality part of the trench had been backfilled, so that's why the bricks could no longer be seen.

11 trenches were dug altogether. The best find was a quarter or so of a green coloured gas globe (the palace apparently contained hundreds of them). Lot's of fragments of the south fountain marble was found in a trench just south east of the headless nympth (behind the hedge line). Finds in other trenches include: brick arching for the court and column foundations; metal parts that worked underneath the fountains; stepped brick supporting foundations for staircases; support pads/piers for the wooden floorboards. A trench was dug at the base of the South Water Tower to discover the the thickness of the foundations (all bricks laid on the ground in a square beside the tower had to be carefully removed and put back again). A large portion of marble was found underneath a different fountain--similar to another loose portion you can find stray above ground in the north-west of the lower terrace green near the north transept sphinxes. At the site of another fountain they didn't find anything at all. The biggest trench was the one on top of the Elizabethan Vestibule (Trench C), which passed over the Paxton Tunnel, in-between the Italian and Rennaisance courts. That's all I remember right now. I look forward to seeing a final report on the findings from MOLAS with the help of Ken Kiss, who aided them with the excavations.

[tulse hill terry]

"CRYSTAL PALACE PARK

ARCHAEOLOGICAL FIELD TRIAL WORK PRELIMINARY RESULTS AT 30TH JUNE 2007

The Museum of London Archaeology Service (MoLAS) has been conducting archaeological trial work (test pits0 in Crystal Palace Park on behalf of the London Development agency, to find out the extent to which remains of the Crystal Palace survive beneath the modern park. The trial pits have now been backfilled following completion of the evaluation, and the records and finds are currently being processed and assessed.

THE CRYSTAL PALACE

The Crystal Palace once stood in the upper, north-western corner of the park (beside Crystal Palace Parade). It had originally been designed to house the Great Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park, but three years later was dismantled and rebuilt in Sydenham. This impressive building, a vast glasshouse with a cast iron frame, was a remarkable technological achievement of the Victorian age.

The Palace measured 1606ft (490m) long by up to 38ft (117m) wide; two wings, north and south, extended 574ft (175m) to the east of the main building. It was supported by hollow cast iron columns 8 inches (20cm) in diameter, mostly placed at regular 24ft (7.3m) intervals.

The interior of the Palace was divided into a series of ‘Fine arts Courts’, which were used to exhibit models, reproductions, casts and material from different countries. There were also ‘industrial’, ‘Botany’, and ‘Natural History’ Courts, a picture gallery, and a photography gallery. The Palace was variously described as an ‘illustrated encyclopaedia’ and ‘a brilliant illustration of all that is noble and elevating in the world’ and less charitably as an ‘incongruous mixture’ of plants, stuffed animals and plaster casts in the same building’. It also held many different shows and exhibitions, and was used for mass meetings and concerts. The significance of the building is also recollected in its vast number of visitors. In its first year it received more than a million visitors, and almost 60 million over the next twelve years. After the catastrophic fire which destroyed the Palace on the night of the 30th November 1936, it was abandoned. Much of what remained of the structure appears to have been systematically demolished or salvaged. Because of its size, the site then became a convenient landfill site, and was filled in with substantial quantities of rubble from as far away as Hackney. This process included imported material from bomb-damaged buildings cleared after the Blitz in the Second World War, and continued until the 1960s. It has resulted in substantial deposits of modern rubble up to 6m deep, which have buried the damaged remains of the Palace.

FOUNTAINS ON THE ITALIAN TERRACE

The fountains themselves were demolished after the Second World War, and one of the aims of the archaeological evaluation was to see if parts of them survived beneath what was once the lower Italian Terrace. No remains of the terrace fountains were found in position, but the brick walls and concrete floor of an 1890’s control room located underneath on of the fountains had survived. Within this were found sections of circular iron pipe work with jets which once sprayed water into the air from the fountain, as well as fragments of its stone structure. Another test pit produced massive stone fragments from the demolished remains of the plinths of statues which had once decorated the Italian Terrace.

OTHER TERRACE STAIRS

Other test pits were positioned to look for remains of the former stairs from the Upper terrace down to the Italian Terrace, in areas now covered with earth banks. However, the stone steps do not survive; they were probably removed for salvage in the 1950s or 1960s, although damaged remains of the supporting brick walls survived in most of the locations.

FOUNTAINS INSIDE THE PALACE

Within the southern end of the former Palace, a test pit revealed part of the basement-level brick supports for a fountain, so large that it was labelled a ‘lake’ on the 1871 Ordnance Survey map (above). The fountain itself did not survive. At its base, a layer of burnt debris from the fire produced sections of white marble, which had once graced the fountain basin. Further north in the building, brick foundations were found for walls which once separated the ‘Italian’ and ‘Renaissance’ Courts.

THE PAXTON TUNNEL

Because of its location on a sloping hillside, basements beneath the floor of the Palace increased in depth to the east, and included a service route known as the Paxton Tunnel, after Sir Joseph Paxton, the designer of the Palace and surrounding park. Within these former basement levels on the eastern side of the building, a variety of partially demolished sections of brick wall have survived under the modern infill. Those seen in the evaluation included the footing for the eastern wall of the Palace and elements of the furnace or boiler rooms off the Paxton Tunnel. What was apparently the floor of the ‘tunnel’ itself took the form of a compacted surface of crushed cinders. The burnt remnants of a wooden floor lay between dwarf-wall footing for lightweight walls, and the bases of the cast iron columns, set in brick, which supported the main floor of the Palace above.

BRUNEL’S WATER TOWERS

Two water towers, designed by the noted engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, were built at the northern ends of the Palace, and used to feed the fountains both inside the Palace and on the garden terraces below. Although demolished in the Second World War to prevent them being used as navigation aids by German bombers, the circular brick bases of the towers survive today. A test pit recorded the massive brick and concrete foundations of the southern tower, extending 3m below ground level."

From three boards on display in the LDA tent at the Victorian Weekend held by the Crystal Palace Foundation

[leenewham]

Does anyone know of the attempts to build on the palace site since it burnt down?

I am facinated by the place!

Any pictures?

[tulse hill terry]

Try here for subsequent plans for redevelopment.

http://www.crystal.dircon.co.uk/b28_dev ... s.htm#1949

I did see drawings of the planned exhibition centre to be built at the same time as the sports centre, but on the old Palace site. Just can't remember where I saw them. It looked like a hanger, with a spiral staircase much like Lubetkin's at the Penguin house, London Zoo.

[matty]

although an old topic, add what I saw and my opinion. I did see them damage a section of it but luckily for them it is now buried, and will unlikely ever be dug up again for anyone to prove it.

The "archeology" was done far too quickly and not carefully enough to be of decent quality. It was simply done so the LDA could write some paper work so that they can say they have done some archeology on the site so they could get their masterplan approved.

They also only mostly dug trenches were they have possible development plans (and to be fair is rightly so) for example
south tower: wind tower,
steps and fountains: the ramp gardens.

They could have however done some archeology in useful places such as the North Tower base, the cascades area one of the engine houses, or numerous other buildings that had been on the site, but because none of these interfered with the LDA's plans they never bothered to.

So basically it was rushed "archeology" with the intention to get planning permission rather than to discover history.