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London is often described as a collection of distinct urban villages rather than a single sprawling metropolis, due to the way it developed over time. Discover each neighbourhood's unique character and charm.
A palace stood here for eighty-two years, and the terraces it stood on are still here.
The hill is named after a building that burned down in 1936. Paxton's Crystal Palace was taken down in Hyde Park after the Great Exhibition and put up again here, larger, in 1854; Victoria opened it in front of forty thousand people, two railways were run up to serve it, and a district grew around it that had not existed before. On the night of 30 November 1936 it went up, and the glow was seen from eight counties. What you walk on now are the terraces: the great stone platforms it sat on, with their sphinxes and their balustrades, stepping down the slope towards nothing. The transmitter that went up in 1956 stands roughly where the building did, so the skyline still has a mast on it. Lower down the park are the dinosaurs, made by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins in 1854 under Richard Owen's direction and wrong in almost every particular - the iguanodon has its thumb spike on its nose - which is exactly why they are protected. They are the first attempt anyone made to show extinct animals at full size to the public. Up at the junction, five boroughs meet and the triangle of streets between them is full of shops that trade on it.
Photo by Marathon, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.