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Click here for a short history of Crystal Palace Motor sport.
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After the structure designed originally for the 1851 Great Exhibition was moved from Hyde Park, in 1854, to its new parkland site at Penge Place in South East London, Punch magazine dubbed Joseph Paxton’s iron and glass structure as ‘The Crystal Palace’. The name stuck and the immediate area, train station and local football club are still called Crystal Palace.
It has become a London landmark, having hosted many great events, from concerts to the FA Cup Final. But it is motor sport which has defined the site consistently over the years.
Races ran for four years from 1899 over various courses in the park and events at the world’s first motor racing venue became fixtures on both motoring and social event calendars. The lap record was set at an average speed of 36mph and very close races were held on a banked oval, plus other circuits running around the park’s pathways..
Racing returned, restricted to motorcycles, on the now-traditional May date in 1927, and another new track was constructed the following year for the Glaziers motorcycle speedway team. A quarter-mile oval, it ran around the perimeter of the sports field.
Crowds of 30,000 would turn out to watch the action, many dressed in the black and orange colours of the local team. The speedway promoters also brought back car racing, running races for midget cars on the loose-surface oval.
Before and after the war . . .During the great depression the business running the two tracks failed and there was little activity until 1937, when a brand-new purpose-built motor racing circuit was constructed. Its two-mile layout still defines much of the park. The ethos of the track was to escape the elitism of Brooklands in Surrey, which had the slogan ‘the right crowd and no crowding’; Crystal Palace, on the other hand, branded itself as ‘London’s own circuit’.
Shortly before the construction of the new track the, then run-down, Crystal Palace building burned to the ground. Its heart may have gone but its soul had not; and, in late April, racing cars took to the new track for the first time. The hilly nature of the course made for some exceptional spectator vantage points; meaning big crowds: something that defined all future tracks at the Palace.
Prince ‘Bira’, a member of the Thai (‘Siam’ at the time) royal family, was the star of the show, driving his car to the limit to win the inaugural London Grand Prix. Races at the Palace became legendary and crowds were increasing when the dark clouds of war forced all motor sport to stop, with the exception of a final Speedway meeting; held in 1940 to entertain troops.
Racing continued after the war and the new 1.39-mile circuit, opened in May 1953 was to become a classic, regular fixture on the international motor sport scene. The 1950s saw everything from non-championship Formula 1 races to sports cars and saloon cars; a mixture that would continue into the early ’70s. One Whit Monday, no fewer than 100,000 spectators turned out to watch the Coronation Trophy races.
Entry lists read as a who’s-who of famous drivers; Formula 1 superstars Stirling Moss, James Hunt, Jim Clark and Graham Hill.
Le Mans winners; for example, Henri Pescarolo; rally drivers such as Vic Elford and Pentti Airikkala and many more eminent drivers. It was the heyday of racing at the Palace with huge crowds and superstar drivers. Although the venue never hosted a Formula 1 Grand Prix; Formula 2, Formula 3 and the British Touring Car Championship were all annual visitors. There was even a stage of the RAC Rally at the Palace in 1958.
Sadly, however, a lack of the money needed to bring the track to modern safety standards brought car racing to a halt in 1972.