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If you’ve never laid eyes on Crystal Palace Park’s famous dinosaur sculptures you’re in for a treat. There are 30 enormous, not particularly accurate but nonetheless enchanting, concrete lizards dotted around the park’s lakes, that are the remains of a Victorian theme park planned by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins in 1854.
People love these guys so much they’re now listed as Grade I monuments – a title reserved for sites of international importance – and now there are plans to make the reptiles feel even more at home.
Friends of Crystal Palace Dinosaurs are enlisting volunteers to help prepare the ground around the dinos for some Jurassic-style planting. They'll be surrounding the monsters with ferns, ginkos and cycads – green stuff that would have been everywhere when dinosaurs were roaming the planet – to make it feel like you've stepped out of south-east London and into ‘Jurassic Park’.
The work is part of a larger project to celebrate the south London landmark, that will also include a programme of talks by specialists, street theatre, art events and behind-the-scenes island conservation tours throughout the year.
Work to get the dinosaurs' island looking spick and span started in April and will continue until the end of 2018. If you fancy helping them out and getting a rare chance to get close to the much-loved creatures, call 07952 012 487.
Fancy seeing more of London's favourite public sculptures? Check out our list of the best of them.