Crystal Palace to Nunhead
15 February. An impressive total of 22 assembled at Crystal Palace station, despite a poor weather forecast.
The Crystal Palace building was originally constructed for the Great Exhibition of 1851 which was held in Hyde Park. At the end of the 6 months long exhibition it was taken down and rebuilt on the current site where it was used until destroyed by fire in 1936. A railway line was built from Nunhead to carry the large number of visitors and the walk follows some of the old route.
The hall was built up on a stonework base which is all that remains. One can still appreciate what a massive building it was, being nearly 600 metres long. The designer, Joseph Paxton, was principally a gardener but he drew on his experience of large greenhouses. The building, three times the size of St Pauls, had many innovative features. It consisted of largely standardised panels of plate glass in cast iron frames. For the first time in a major structure, standard nuts and bolts were used which hugely simplified construction. The original Exhibition charged for entry, and made a surplus of £25 million over the six month period which was used to found the V&A museum.
Passing the athletics stadium and the amphitheatre we left the park and shortly arrived at the attractive Sydenham Wells park, which takes it name from springs used in the 17th century for health cures. In Crescent Wood Road, there’s a substantial house where John Logie Baird stayed during his experiments on an early TV system in the 1920’s.
We dropped down into a cutting, where the old railway emerges from a tunnel. The path is now densely wooded and maintained with a view to encouraging biodiversity. There’s an impressive new footbridge, Cox’s Bridge, over the former track replacing an original structure. This was the approximate point from where Pissaro did his painting in about 1871. It’s hard to imagine that there was quite a large community of French painters in London in the 1870’s, escaping the political upheaval back home.
We soon emerged to cross London Road, and enter the Horniman Museum and Gardens. The museum has benefitted from extensive restoration, winning the Art Fund’s museum of the year in 2022. The gardens are grade 2 listed. Apart from a smart looking café, there’s a barn with tables where we had our picnics. From the terrace, there’s a view of Dawson’s Heights, a large social housing project dating from the 1960s. Designed by a young architect Kate Macintosh its stepped design was to give many of the flats, views in two directions.
We were soon passing through Camberwell Old Cemetery then a final climb to One Tree Hill, It was a somewhat cloudy but we had glimpses of the famous view to the north. Descending to Camberwell New Cemetery, a level stretch through Victorian terraced housing took us to Nunhead Cemetery. This is one of the so called Magnificent Seven cemeteries, dating from the 1840s. They were commercial ventures granted permission by Parliament to relieve pressure on church graveyards that were becoming full. Nunhead was one of the first to open, being built by the same company as Highgate. Just by the entrance there’s an imposing granite obelisk. This was built to commemorate a group of five, known as the Scottish Martyrs, who were sentenced for sedition in 1793 and transported to Australia. The funds were raised by a public campaign in 1851, led by the Radical MP, Joseph Hume. There is a similar monument on Carlton Hill, Edinburgh.
And so to a nice warm train back to London. Thanks to all that came out and contributed to an enjoyable day. Special thanks to those who joined us for the first time – we hope to see you again.
The route is part of the Green Chain walk and I used a version provided by Go Jauntly, Green Chain Walk Section 11.
Thanks to Christine and Sigrid for the photos.
Mike C
