Poster our green Megalosaurus logo underneath the Fossil Festival logo, with some of the sculptures invading the poster
We’re happy to announce that we will be at the Lyme Regis Fossil Festival this year, 13-14th June, in a building called The Hub - part of the Museum and Artists Quarter
More info to come! x
black and white illustration of a large vertically-striped balloon, with the Palace partly in view in the background. A Megalosaurus is suspended underneath it
The aeronaut Henry Coxwell transports the Megalosaurus across the Crystal Palace grounds in his giant balloon "Mammoth"
Please note that this did not happen
Brown paving slab with a section through the spiral shell of an ammonite
A fossil belemnite with the phragmacone preserved in a paving slab. This is a dark brown, cigar shaped fossil with a cone-shaped, flared structure in which the individual chambers of the shell can be seen. It’s rare for this phragmacone to be preserved.
A nice walk this afternoon looking at urban and bedrock geology in Walthamstow with a team of TfL engineers. We started of with a bit of Jurassic pavement palaeontology #urbangeology
colour photo, closeup of the standing Iguanodon peering over scaffolding, a darkish shade of green
colour photo, side closeup of the Megalosaurus witin scaffolding, a shade of dark brown…
colour photo, the Hylaeosaurus within scaffolding, a more vibrant shade of green
colour photo, closeup of the sprawling Iguanodon within scaffolding, the same shade of green as the other one
Some photos from a sunny walk in Crystal Palace Park this morning, showing progress on the actual dinosaurs
Colours! Some different than others! Monocle emoji!
This Easter holiday, pick up your free Secrets of the Sculptures booklet from The Paxton Centre and enjoy a walk through Crystal Palace Park, discovering the stories behind its historic statues ✨🌿
#heritage #history
👀
sorry
the Megalosaurus with a pale basecoat, with some really bad pixelated scales painted in CPFC stripes. Oliver Glasner is all in black and celebrating. Pardew is in the foreground doing his FA Cup dance
We’re super-excited to be at a press event this morning unveiling the start of the Megalosaurus paint scheme
To have CPFC manager Oliver Glasner in high spirits was a real treat. Former manager Alan Pardew (not invited) delighted the press with his dancing while reeling off William Buckland facts
A capybara in the flooded crypt of Winchester cathedral
HAMPSHIRE COMEDY
💅
Composite image of the fossil holotype in its matrix, with the head of the Crystal Palace Hylaeosaurus peering at it
For #fossilfriday, NHMUK PV OR 3775 - the Hylaeosaurus holotype!
Found in 1832 in a quarry in Tilgate Forest, W Sussex, after being gunpowderexploded (new term we’re trying out) into many pieces
One can only speculate as to how complete the specimen may have been with a luckier gunpowderexplosion
Hi, and good question - we’re not sure, but we’ll try and find out. One if the benches up there was vandalised not too long ago, if memory serves..
(For those visiting over the coming weeks, please tag us and we will reskeet any and all photos 🙏)
colour photo. the sprawling Iguanodon, with an incomplete green paint scheme. The standing Iguanodon is still surrounded by scaffolding
Just a quick update to say that the remaining footpaths around the tidal lake are now open, as this photo from earlier today shows!
Restoration on the sculptures is still very much underway, and we will post more info (including the stories behind the colours) closer to the finish line..
Thanks for flagging us. Very sad, as Adam has said, but also interesting. I don’t think we’ve heard of the Dinos being used as sanctuary in this way
The access holes have been closed with metal grates for quite some time, so this would have been feasible earlier than the noughties(?)
Colour photo. a slide coming out of the “mouth” of a long, blocky wooden climbing frame with nets
Colour photo. Detail of the “body” of the climbing frame. Poles made to resemble rib bones. a spongy orange surface is underneath
Colour photo. An empty round “basket swing” casts as satisfying shadow on the ground
Colour photo: a sloping wall of layers of coloured bricks - could they be..of geological relevance??? In the background, three shiny metal slides on a slope. Two of them are tube slides, with a terminal velocity not too much slower from that vital one where the policeman flies out
Some child-free photos of the new Crystal Palace Park Dinosaur Playground, which had its grand opening today
(The first time we’ve been at an event where a mayor cuts a ribbon with oversized scissors - we thought that was just a myth, or from 1980s regional news programmes)
Black and white book illustration. Scantily-clad European looking cavemen with clubs encounter a Plesiosaurus with a very gaping jaw in weeds by the shoreline
“Early Man Contending with the Plesiosaurus”
An illustration from the 1887 book “Sea and Land : An Illustrated History of the Wonderful and Curious Things of Nature Existing Before and Since the Deluge”, by James Buel
archive.org/details/seal...
the burning of the Palace was certainly a core memory for all Londoners, as the fire could be seen across the city
Hi Lisa. It’s likely that the lower path around the reptiles, and the paths that go next to the mammals, will still be closed at the end of the month - and that many of the sculptures will be obscured by scaffolding or covers. Just trying to manage expectations, sorry! 🙏
colour photo view from the top of the bank next to the OG Hylaeosaurus head. The ground has been treated with hydro seed, following the bad weather, so appears strangely verdant. Some of the actual dinosaurs are partly visible, obscured by trees and scaffolding. The Megalosaurus and sprawling Iguanodon are a very light green.
A snap from the park taken earlier this week - keen-eyed observers may notice a new base coat of paint on a couple of the dinosaurs!
Next week should see this upper path along the Secondary Island reopening. Beyond that, hopefully more exciting things to share…
Best wishes to everyone x
On the evening of Friday 20th March 2026,
@sharkbitesteve.bsky.social and I are talking about #palaeoart and the backstory to our 2025 @bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social book Mesozoic Art II. Join us at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History or talks and book signings. Info and tickets here...
Top left, portrait of Mary Anning wearing a green cloak and a straw bonnet and holding a hammer; bottom left, Buckland's address on a letter by Mary Anning; right, portrait of William Buckland, in a dark jacket, white shirt and tie, balding and with long sideburns.
12 March 1784, Axminster, Devon: Birth of William Buckland. Reader in Geology and Mineralogy at Oxford, Buckland was a lifelong friend of Mary Anning and her greatest supporter. He was the first to be told of any new discoveries and helped her to find buyers for her fossils or bought them himself.
black and white photo. Three Anoplotheriums being “ridden” by Navy lads
“..The spacious grounds..afford plenty of scope for amusement, and the uses to which some members of the Brigade have turned the prehistoric and other weird beasts in the shrubberies is an echo, no doubt, of the real sailor’s well known fondness for a mount of any sort when ashore.”
😬
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grainy black and white photo. Three naval reserve lads atop the Hylaeosaurus
From a letter in COUNTRY LIFE magazine, 13/02/1915:
“SIr, The saying that “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy“ appears to have been taken seriously to heart by the lads of the Naval Brigade, now in training at the Crystal Palace..
1/2
(the Palace was closed to the public during WW1)
This is a great post - not only about the Dinosaurs, but various things related to both Crystal Palaces, and really interesting to read about the archive project itself 🏅
A good pair of update photos. Many are still under wraps, but this will hopefully be a busy month..🙏
this was a week ago, in not-South East London
black and white engraving. Workmen handle the Mosasaurus skull in dramatic poses, while one holds a torch, lighting the scene and the quarry wall behind. Two robes men in fancier clothes and hats seem to be directing the proceedings
Happy #fossilfriday from this likely over-romanticised 1799 engraving of the discovery of the Mosasaurus hoffmannii holotype in a chalk quarry near Maastricht
This is on display at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, after being looted during the French Revolutionary Wars
New episode of #TerribleLizards is out with @richardfallon.bsky.social talking about Crichton, Conan Doyle, and #dinosaurs in literature. terriblelizards.libsyn.com/tls12e02-1
A skeleton of a giant sloth, holding onto a tall branch, in the Natural History Museum
This is Megatherium. A species that was up to 10x the size of living sloths and weighed up to four tonnes (similar to a bull elephant).
On its hind legs, Megatherium americanum would have stood 12 feet tall. 😮