Crystal Palace Dinosaurs

About

The Crystal Palace Dinosaurs are a series of sculptures of dinosaurs and other extinct animals in Crystal Palace Park, South London. They were commissioned in 1852 to accompany the Crystal Palace Exhibition building after its relocation from the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. The models were unveiled in 1854, as the first dinosaur sculptures in the world.

The dinosaur sculptures, inaccurate by modern standards, were designed by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins under the scientific direction of Sir Richard Owen, representing the latest scientific knowledge at the time. They are also known as the Geological Court or Dinosaur Court, were classed as Grade II listed buildings from 1973, extensively restored in 2002, and upgraded to Grade I listed in 2007. The sculptures represent 15 genera of extinct animals, only three of which are true dinosaurs.

They are from a wide range of geological ages, and include true dinosaurs, ichthyosaurs, and plesiosaurs mainly from the Mesozoic era, and some mammals from the more recent Cenozoic era. The sculptures are notable for representing inaccuracies of early palaeontology, the result of improperly reconstructed fossils and the state of science in the 19th...