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Crystal Palace Park is a Victorian pleasure ground, used for cultural and sporting events. It is located in the south-east London suburb of Crystal Palace, which was in turn named after The Crystal Palace which had been moved from Hyde Park, London after the 1851 Great Exhibition and rebuilt with some modifications and enlargements to form the centrepiece of the pleasure ground, before being destroyed by fire in 1936. The park features full scale models of dinosaurs in a landscape, a maze, lakes and a concert bowl. This site contains the National Sports Centre which includes an athletic stadium. The athletics stadium in the park once housed a football ground, which hosted the FA Cup final from 1895 to 1914 as well as London County Cricket Club games from 1900 to 1908, when they folded, and Crystal Palace F.C.'s matches from their formation in 1905 until the club was forced to relocate during the First World War. The park is situated halfway along the Norwood Ridge at one of its highest points. This ridge offers views northward to central London, east to the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge and Greenwich, and southward to Croydon and the North Downs. The park remains a major London public park. The park was maintained by the LCC and later the GLC, but with the abolition of the GLC in 1986 control of the park was given to the London Borough of Bromley, so the park is now entirely within the London Borough of Bromley. ==History== After the 1851 Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, Joseph Paxton appealed for the retention of The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, but the government decreed that the Palace be removed. Paxton formed the Crystal Palace Company, and the share issue raised £1.3 million for the purchase of the Palace and a new site at the summit of Sydenham Hill in Kent.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=History of The Crystal Palace (Part 1) )〕 The 389 acre site consisted of woodland and the grounds of the mansion known as Penge Place owned by Paxton's friend and railway entrepreneur Leo Schuster.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Leaving Hyde Park, 1851 )〕 Between 1852 and 1855, an enlarged and redesigned Crystal Palace was rebuilt at the new site, set in a park constructed by Sir Joseph Paxton's Crystal Palace Company.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=About Crystal Palace Park: History of the park )〕 The development of ground and gardens of the park (which straddled the border between Surrey and Kent〔Camberwell: Divisions of the New Borough (Map) Ordnance Survey, 1885〕) cost considerably more than the rebuilt Crystal Palace. Edward Milner designed the Italian Garden and fountains, the Great Maze, and the English Landscape Garden, and Raffaele Monti was hired to design and build much of the external statuary around the fountain basins, and the urns, tazzas and vases.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=The Rebuilding at Sydenham, 1852-1854 )〕 The series of fountains constructed required the building of two 284 ft high water towers, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, at either end of the palace.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=History of The Crystal Palace (Part 2) )〕 The sculptor Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins was commissioned to make 33 lifesized models, completed in 1854, of the (then) newly discovered dinosaurs and other extinct animals in the park. The park was also given a gift of a megatherium skull by Charles Darwin. The rebuilt Crystal Palace was opened by Queen Victoria in June 1854. Rail access to the park became possible when the Crystal Palace railway station opened in 1854. In 1864, Thomas Webster Rammell experimented with a 600-yard pneumatic railway in the tunnel between the Sydenham and Penge gates to the park. In 1865, another station, the Crystal Palace (High Level) railway station opened, but this station closed in 1954.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Crystal Palace High Level and Upper Norwood )〕 The park has been used for various sporting activities from its early days. The Crystal Palace Park Cricket Ground was created on the site in 1857. In 1894, the two largest fountains were grassed over and the south basin was converted to a football stadium in 1895.〔 The stadium was used for the FA Cup Finals for 20 years starting with the 1895 FA Cup Final until 1914. A 400 ft-long Marine Aquarium was built in 1872 on a part of The Crystal Palace site left vacant after a fire in 1866.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Crystal Palace Aquarium Co Ltd. )〕 In 1911, the Festival of Empire was held at the park and the park was transformed with buildings designed to represent the British Empire. Many buildings remained at the site until the 1940s.〔 In 1936, The Crystal Palace burnt down.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Disaster strikes, 1936 )〕 The south water tower was demolished soon afterwards due to fire damage. The north water tower was demolished in 1941, perhaps to eliminate landmarks that German bombers might use to orient themselves during air raids in the Second World War. The park also housed one of the pioneer speedway tracks, which opened for business in 1928. The Glaziers raced in the Southern and National Leagues up to 1933 when the promotion moved on to a track in New Cross. The extensive grounds were used in pre-war days for motorcycle racing and, after the 1950s, for motorcar racing; this was known as the Crystal Palace circuit. Large sections of the track layout still remain as access roads around the park. The circuit itself fell into disuse after the final race in 1972, although it has been digitally recreated in the Grand Prix Legends racing simulation and 2010 sees the 10 years of campaigning work to reopen the track culminating in Motorsport at the Palace. The Crystal Palace transmitting station was built on the site of the aquarium in the 1950s. This site is now the National Sports Centre (NSC), which was built in 1964 on the old football ground. In 2005 the Mayor of London and the London Development Agency (LDA) took control of the NSC as part of London's bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics, and it is now managed by Greenwich Leisure on their behalf. During the 2012 Olympics, 200 Brazilian athletes were based at the NSC to prepare and train for their events. The park also once housed a ski slope. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Crystal Palace Park」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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