Sydenham Park, London: one of the many weather-beaten stone sculptures

NOTES: Joseph Paxton designed Sydenham Park as the garden setting for his Crystal Palace, which was erected in Hyde Park in 1851 for the Great Exhibition and rebuilt in a greatly enlarged and amended form at Sydenham in 1852-1854. Since this giant glasshouse stood at the summit of a very steep hill, Paxton chose a formal, terraced design, inspired by the Italian villa gardens he had seen whilst on the Grand Tour with the 6th Duke of Devonshire in 1838-1839.