Crystal Palace Dinosaurs

I just learned of this place... I'm going to try to check it out this weekend... If so, I'll let you know how it is...

Per my friend Wikipedia this is what it had to say about my new find:

The Crystal Palace Dinosaurs, also known as Dinosaur Court, are a series of sculptures of dinosaurs and extinct mammals located in Crystal Palace, London. Commissioned in 1852 and unveiled in 1854, they were the first dinosaur sculptures in the world, pre-dating the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by six years. Designed and sculpted by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins with the help of Richard Owen, they were Grade II listed buildings from 1973, extensively restored in 2002 and upgraded to Grade I listed in 2007.
The models themselves are now considered out of date and to varying degrees inaccurate.

Following the closure of the Great Exhibition in October 1851, The Crystal Palace was bought and moved to Sydenham Hill, South London by the newly formed Crystal Palace Company; the grounds that surrounded it were then extensively renovated and turned into a public park with ornamental gardens, replicas of statues and two new man-made lakes. As part of this renovation Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins was commissioned to build the first ever life-sized models of extinct animals. He had originally planned to just re-create extinct mammals before deciding on building dinosaurs as well, which he did with advice from Sir Richard Owen, a celebrated biologist and palaeontologist of the time. Hawkins set up a workshop on site at the park and built the models there.

The models were displayed on three islands acting as a rough time-line, the first island representing roughly the Paleozoic era, a second representing the Mesozoic era, and a third representing the Cenozoic era. All of the mammals on the third island, however, were later moved to other locations on in the park (which in many ways directly led to them falling into ill-repair). The models' realism was aided by the lake at the time being 'tidal' and rising and falling, revealing different amounts of the dinosaurs. To mark the 'launch' of the models Hawkins held a dinner on New Year's Eve 1853 inside the mold of one of the Iguanodon.

Cheers,
WMMc