The Martians have invaded, time to return the favor!

The Martians have invaded, time to return the favor!

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Crystal Palace Dinosaurs




Following the closure of the Great Exhibition in October 1851,
The Crystal Palace was bought and moved to Sydenham Hill,
South London by the newly formed Crystal Palace Company;
the grounds that surrounded it were then extensively renovated
and turned into a public park with ornamental gardens, replicas
of statues and two new man-made lakes. As part of this
renovation Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins was commissioned
to build the first ever life-sized models of extinct animals. He
had originally planned to just re-create extinct mammals before
deciding on building dinosaurs as well, which he did with advice
from Sir Richard Owen, a celebrated biologist and paleontologist
of the time. Hawkins set up a workshop on site at the park and
built the models there.

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