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Missing Crystal Palace mammal recreated decades after disappearance
A new statue is joining the world’s oldest display of extinct wildlife in south London.
Produced as a recreation of the now-missing historic original, the sculpture of Palaeotherium magnum coincides with a turning point in the conservation of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs.
A group of ancient mammals has been reunited in south London for the first time since the 1960s.
The three palaeotheres, relatives of horses that lived in Europe and Asia around 40 million years ago, are among over 30 sculptures of prehistoric life found in Crystal Palace Park since the 1850s. Following the mysterious disappearance of one of the statues, however, the palaeothere group has been reduced to only a pair for almost 60 years.
Now, the charity Friends of Crystal Palace Dinosaurs (FCPD) and the Crystal Palace Park Trust, have collaborated with palaeoartists to fund and build a replacement statue of the missing Palaeotherium magnum, completing the trio for the first time in over half a century.
Professor Adrian Lister, a specialist in fossil mammals at the Museum and Trustee of FCPD, says that the new statue marks the beginning of renewed efforts to restore the Grade I listed sculptures.
‘The new statue is an amazing recreation of the original, based on very careful study of archival images. In the future, we would love to replace more of the missing sculptures.’
‘Our main priority for now, however, is to repair and conserve the sculptures that are already in place. A large lottery grant has recently been awarded for a major conservation effort for all the standing statues, which will help protect them for the next 170 years.’
Dr Ellinor Michel, an evolutionary biologist at the Museum and chair of FCPD, says, ‘The sculpture appears fun and quirky on first glance, but like all things around the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs, it conveys a very serious message of historic conservation, science communication and community engagement.’
‘We are also very proud of it as an example of collaboration among specialists bringing skills from a range of disciplines to create something that speaks to everyone.’
Palaeotheres and anoplotheres caught the public's imagination after being identified as some of the first extinct mammals by scientists in the 1800s. Public domain image by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, from the archives of the Natural History Museum, London.
Why are the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs important?
The Crystal Palace Dinosaurs have their origins following the Great Exhibition of 1851. When the exhibition’s venue was relocated to south London, the Crystal Palace’s new owners landscaped the park extensively, commissioning the sculptures as part of a walk-through geological timeline for visitors.
‘The Crystal Palace Dinosaurs remain hugely important in the history of palaeontology,’ Adrian says. ‘They’re the very first time that life-size sculptures of prehistoric animals had been attempted in the flesh and put on public display, making them really revolutionary for public outreach on this topic.’
‘While our understanding of what these creatures looked like has now moved on, they represent the original concepts of what these animals looked like, frozen in time.’
The original Crystal Palace Dinosaurs were made by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins at his studio in Sydenham, including Palaeotherium which can be seen in the back left. Public domain image by Philip Henry Delamotte, from Wikimedia Commons.
The name ‘Crystal Palace Dinosaurs’ is, however, something of a misnomer. While the dinosaurs are some of the largest and most impressive sculptures in the display, they only represent four out of more than 30 statues which also include pterosaurs, marine reptiles and early amphibians.
In fact, the animals most commonly depicted in the Crystal Palace sculptures are extinct mammals. Some of the species, such as the giant deer Megaloceros and the ground sloth Megatherium, lived quite recently and would have been seen by humans between 8,000 and 20,000 years ago.
The remainder of the mammal sculptures are based on much older animals. The palaeotheres and anoplotheres were both herbivore groups that lived during the Eocene Period, which lasted from around 56 to 34 million years ago.
As their fossils are quite common in southern England and northern France, they were some of the first extinct animals ever identified by early palaeontologists. Their better fossil record also means that, in comparison to some of the other Crystal Palace sculptures, the mammal statues are still quite up-to-date.
‘The Crystal Palace mammals were some of the most accurate reconstructions by our modern understanding, because these species were known from mostly complete skeletons that had been comparatively well-studied when the sculptures were being made,’ Adrian says.
The original statue is last known to have been in the park in the early 1960s, before disappearing within the next few years. Image © Crystal Palace Foundation.
‘Their shape was also informed by living analogues, making it more straightforward to figure out what they looked like. While we now know that they didn’t have full trunks and their heads weren’t as tapir-like as depicted in Crystal Palace in 1854, the broad form of their bodies was probably quite similar to the sculptures.’
But over the years since their unveiling, the fortunes of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs waned. As scientific developments moved on in the twentieth century, the statues lost the acclaim they had enjoyed with the Victorians. Vandalism, theft, and exposure to the elements meant the sculptures fell into a state of disrepair, with eight vanishing altogether.
Now, with the help of a variety of stakeholders, including Bromley Council, Historic England, artists and the scientific community, efforts are being made to restore the sculptures to their former glory.
To make the mould of the Palaeotherium statue, palaeoartist Bob Nicholls created the overall body shape with over 200 kg of clay in a process similar to how the originals were made. Image © Bob Nicholls.
Restoring the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs
While there have been episodic repairs to some of the Crystal Palace sculptures over the years, the statues have continued to decay. Cracks have appeared in the fabric of the animals following a lack of regular maintenance, and some parts have fallen off altogether.
In 2020, this led to the statues being added to Historic England’s Heritage at Risk Register, which highlights important sites and structures that are in danger of being lost to draw attention and investment towards them.
The sculptures are set to be the headline item of a planned £5 million regeneration project for Crystal Palace Park. Immediate efforts are focusing on surveying the statues to better understand why they’re decaying, so that any future restoration work has the best chance of succeeding.
The new version of the Palaeotherium sculpture was created using a mould to recreate its shape. Image © Bob Nicholls.
In addition to fixing the broken sculptures, the FCPD has also been campaigning to recreate those which are no longer present. Palaeotherium magnum was chosen to go first because it is one of the most notable missing statues and helps to highlight the other palaeotheres nearby, while restoring a lost piece of the park’s history.
‘We’re not trying to produce a modern interpretation of this animal, but instead an accurate recreation of the original,’ Adrian says. ‘Renowned palaeoartist Bob Nicholls, has gone to tremendous lengths in consulting with researchers and archival records of the original to reconstruct it.’
But it’s not just the sculptures that need looking after. They were originally designed to sit in a wider landscape, with artificial cliffs known as ‘Geological Illustrations’ built to represent key examples of England’s geology.
These have also suffered from damage over the years, with researchers from the Museum also helping in their restoration, as well as helping to restore the areas vegetation to how it might have looked in the 1850s.
‘There are very few sculptures of plants at the site, so we’re doing what we call palaeo planting,’ Adrian says. ‘We’re trying to replant the site with appropriate plants such as tree ferns and cycads, as these groups date back to the time when the animals represented by the sculptures were alive.’
With time, it’s hoped that all of the lost Crystal Palace Dinosaurs will be reinstated. Eventually, the restoration of the sculptures and their surroundings will mean that visitors can enjoy a uniquely Victorian view of our prehistoric world, almost as it was when revealed to Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and an awestruck public in 1854.
