Source: www.speakup.com.br
Language level: Avanced
Speaker: Mark Worden
Standard: British accent
FROM MEDIEVAL TO ART DECO...
Eltham Palace is a little known, but fascinating, London tourist attraction. Originally it was a medieval royal palace, but it later fell into decline. In the 1930s it was acquired by a wealthy couple who transformed it into a temple of Art Deco. And, so, if you visit Eltham Palace today, you can see two very different styles side by side. SpeakUp went to Eltham Smith, who works for English Heritage as Curator for Collections for South London. She talked about Eltham Palace’s unusual history.
Annie Kemkaran-Smith
Standard English accent.
The whole site as a manor house dates from around the 11th century. Bishop Odo, who was a half-brother of William the Conqueror, was given it by his brother, and, from that point, really up until the sort of 14th century, it stayed as a manor house. It was given to Edward I in the 1300s and, from that point on, it became a royal property and various monarchs did building schemes to improve it. Some of the monarchs that spent a lot of time here. Edward IV, he built the Great Hall, as you see it now, Henry VII spent a lot of time here and and Henry VII was actually raised in the royal nursery when it was at Eltham.
AHEAD OF THEIR TIME…
Eltham Palace changed dramatically when it was bought by Sir Stephen Courtauld and his Italian-Hungarian wife, Virginia Peirano the Cortaud family had made their fortune in textiles and Stephen’s older brother Samuel founded London’s Coutard Institute of Art. The cople revolutionised Eltham Palace.
Annie Kemkaran-Smith
In domestic architecture, I think it was streets ahead of its time. I think there are public places like hotels and other public buildings that probably had the same general style, but I think in this house at Eltham the fantastic things that you see, like the centralized vacuum cleaner system, so there’s a motor the actual hardware in the basement, so all the maids had to do was plug in hoover up and it would all get collected in the basement. That kind of thing is so advanced for the 1930s period that they were far ahead of the rest of the world.
CRYSTAL PALACE DINOSAURS (no audio)
In Park in South London there is a strange and unexpected sight Groups of huge animals gather at the edge of a lake, looking of prey of relaxing in the sun. These are the Chrystal Palace dinosaurs, the world’s first dinosaur sculptures.
Victorian London was fascinated with dinosaurs and when Crystal Palace Park opened in 1852, the sculptor Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins was commissioned to build life-size models. To celebrate their competition, on New Year’s Eve1853 Hawkins held a dinner party in the stomach of an Iguanodon!
In all 15 different species of dinosaur and other extinct animal appeared in the park. They were a sensation in London at the time. But the term dinosaur, meaning ‘terrible lizard, had only been invented ten years earlier and the science was new. The models were not very realistic and soon became ridiculed, overgrown and forgotten. Today they have been fully restored and stand proudly again in their own corner of London.
CRYSTAL PALACE PARK (NO AUDIO)
The Crystal Palace was an enormous building of iron and glass. It was built to house the Great Exhibition of 1851, a celebration of British Industry and culture which was visited by a third of the UK’s population!
Following the exhibition, the Crystal Palace was created. It stood here from 1854 to 1936, when it was destroyed by fire. The park occupies one of the highest points in London, with great views over the city.
In addition to the dinosaurs, the park is home to a museum, the National Sports Centre and London’s largest maze!
VISITING INFO
Address: Thicket Road, Penge SE20 8DT
Entry: free, open daily from dawn to dusk.
Travel: overground train from Victoria to Crystal Palace or from London Bridge to Penge West
NEW YORK DINOSAUR LEGEND
Following the initial success of his Crystal Palace models. Hawkins travelled to the US to build dinosaurs for New York’s Central Park. However, the project fell victim to local politics. His giant sculptures were destroyed, and legend has it they were buried in the south of the park, near Umpires Rock where they still lie today.
