CRYSTAL PALACE
The pre war years 1927-1939

When, during the '70s and '80s, there was a move towards street circuits it was often suggested that a Grand Prix of London would be a good idea and a number of possible configurations, some more serious than others, were put forward. What many people do not realise is that between 1927 and 1972 London had its own racing circuit that hosted F1, F2 and Sports Car racing on a regular basis, the circuit was Crystal Palace, located at Sydenham in SE London.

In 1849 Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, announced a "Great Exhibition" in London's Hyde Park as a magnificent celebration of the British Empire. The architect, Joseph Paxton, designed what in effect was a huge prefabricated greenhouse, standing 108 ft tall, it was 1848 ft long and 408 ft wide and Punch magazine soon christened it The Crystal Palace. Queen Victoria opened it on May Day 1851 and by the time it was closed in October of the same year some 6,000,000 visitors had attended and the profits paid for the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington. Joseph Paxton (now Sir Joseph) bought back the structure for £70,000 and it was taken apart and transported to Sydenham where it was rebuilt in Penge Place, a 200 acre estate. The grounds were landscaped and it became a very popular attraction with the Victorians and the whole area soon became known as Crystal Palace.

The Crystal Palace from the air showing the huge scale of the building and the surrounding grounds.

In 1927 a group of motorcycle enthusiasts kept pestering the Trustees of the park to be allowed to stage some motorcycle races using some of the paths in the park, eventually permission was granted and on 21st May 1927 the Crystal Palace Road Racing Meeting took place. More than 10,000 spectators each paying about 6p (in current money) arrived to watch many of the top riders of the day compete on a one-mile course. The event was considered a great success despite a couple of spectators being hurt when a sidecar combination left the track, and a second meeting with several improvements was planned.

A Raleigh leading an AJS through Maze Hairpin at the first ever meeting at the Crystal Palace in 1927.

The second event was even more successful with 16,000 spectators each paying 25p to view the action. Also in 1928 a quarter-mile cinder speedway track was added and to everyone's complete amazement about 30,000 people turned up to the meeting and speedway continued to be a popular addition to the Crystal Palace until 1934.

By the middle of the 1930s motorcycle racing had ceased as the original track became more and more dilapidated and the speedway meetings with the home team of "The Glaziers" had moved to nearby New Cross as the fees for using the track became prohibitive. Then in 1935 rumours of a "Donington for London" began as the Trustees of the Crystal Palace began planning a permanent track in an effort to bring visitors back and within a year plans for the new track were drawn up. 2 miles long with a width of 30 ft, except for the start/finish line where the width was increased to 50 ft, the track was designed to be a challenging mixture of fast straights with some tricky corners and on December 3rd 1936 work began on the new circuit. However three days earlier tragedy had struck when a small fire quickly developed into a huge blaze and the entire glass structure of the Crystal Palace was engulfed in flames that were visible in the night sky for many miles, over 60 fire engines attended the scene to no avail, the entire structure was razed to the ground. Since the major attraction of the park was now no more work quickly proceeded on the new circuit in order to provide a new attraction for visitors as soon as possible and by April 1937 the track was complete.

The original layout of the Crystal Palace circuit in 1937.

Saturday April 24th saw the first races take place and such notable names as Raymond Mays (later to be the guiding light behind BRM), Reg Parnell (future Grand Prix driver and BRM Team Manager) and former motorcyclist Freddie Dixon were entered. Cars included ERAs, MGs, Rileys and Maseratis. The main race, the Coronation Trophy was won by Pat Fairhead's ERA who also set the first lap record of 2 min 12 sec, an average speed of 54.59 mph. More meetings followed for cars, motorcycles and cycles. On July 17th the London Grand Prix was won by the legendary B. Bira, or Prince Birabongse of Siam to give him his full title, in his almost as famous ERA R2B, Romulus. For the October 9th 1937 meeting, the International Imperial Trophy Race proved another victory for Bira although Luigi Villoresi's Maserati proved very popular and Richard Seaman demonstrated the Grand Prix Mercedes W125 to the enthralled crowd. Such was the popularity of these races that this October meeting would be chosen as the BBC's first ever outside broadcast of motor sport. Regular racing became the norm until the meeting on 26 August 1939, eight days later war was declared and Crystal Palace would not echo to the sound of racing engines for another 16 years.

Dick Seaman demonstrating the Silver Arrows Mercedes Benz W125 in October 1937.

The 1939 Crystal Palace Cup Race, featuring ERAs, Rileys and leading, an Alta.

Please click HERE for "Crystal Palace: The Post War Years, 1953-1972"

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