Will The Crystal Palace,

like the Phoenix rise from the ashes?

first erected in Hyde Park the Crystal Palace was in 1854 rebuilt in a larger form on Penge Common, near Sydenham Hill in South London and stood there until it was destroyed a fire, I have visited the site it stood on many times, there was at one time a car and motorbike race circuit on the site which I visited, plus every year a huge firework display would take place there amongst other attractions, the stone arch ways and some of the vases seen in the above picture can still be viewed today,

but my earliest memory was my father telling when we visited the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs when I was 8 or so years old that he as a boy could remember all of the people in the street where he lived in Plumstead, Woolwich were in the road looking at the flames from the Palace in the far distance, despite 89 fire engines and 400 firemen the blaze totally destroyed the glass structure, but now some good news for Crystal Place, it might be rebuilt, Shanghai-based ZhongRong Holdings, owned by one of China’s richest men, Ni Zhaoxing, a married father of four and self-made businessman said to have a fortune of $1.25billion (£810million), is rumoured to be having talks,


the mayor and the borough of Bromley had been ‘approached by a potential developer keen to redevelop a  large section of the north side of the park’ the spokesman added: ‘discussions between all parties remain  at a very early feasibility stage but the plans do not include any residential development, any fully formed proposal would of course be presented to the public for comment in order to build a consensus on the way forward', a Bromley Council spokesman said: ‘We are committed to improving Crystal Palace park, which remains a jewel not just in Bromley’s, but in London’s crown', what a great idea, I some how feel some thing for the Crystal Palace, living close to it and visiting it so often, for me I hope this idea gathers momentum and the Crystal Palace rises again.