The Victorian ‘Geological Illustrations’ of Crystal Palace Park

Abstract

Crystal Palace Park in southeast London was the site of the first geological ‘theme park’. Constructed in 1853–54, this park exhibited complex geological relationships and full-sized reconstructions of extinct vertebrates. Today, this first attempt at mass geological education away from the textbook or museum is neglected, its lessons largely forgotten. This paper attempts to redress this by reviving interest in the scheme as a whole, and by documenting what remains today.