The Crystal Palace from the Great Exhibition, installed at Sydenham: sculptures of prehistoric creatures in the foreground. Colour Baxter-process print by G. Baxter, 1864(?).

The "Crystal Palace", built at Hyde Park, was disassembled at the end of the Great Exhibition of 1851. Against both local and national resistance, the building was re-erected at Sydenham in 1854, in an enlarged form. On the night of 30 November 1936, the building caught fire and was entirely consumed, the prehistoric creatures still exist.

The prehistoric creatures were made, of iron, by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins with advice from Professor Richard Owen

The accumulator towers flanking the Palace, which provided the pressure of water neccessary for the fountains, are not shown in this print