My sketches of Crystal Palace Subway
Crystal Palace Subway is a beautiful, Grade II* listed historical architecture in London. The beautiful pedestrian tunnel used to connect between Crystal Palace and the station which once existed — called Crystal Palace High Level station from 1865 to 1954. Its restoration has been completed since 2024, and it’s opening to the public with limited designated sessions. I am thankful to visit twice last year (2024) and even quick sketched on location.
The subway and High Level station were built to improve the transportation to get there, because the first station, still in operation, is located a bit far away downhill from the glass architecture, so that people have to walk up for around 10 minutes to reach the palace. At first I misunderstood that the second station was just the extension from the first station, but it’s the terminal of another line from Peckham (extended to St Paul’s later).
I have two related sketches now. One is the imaginative cross-section showing the whole picture of the subway: how it connects the station and the park. The subway is short but I believed it helped create the good beginning of the great Crystal Palace visiting experience if I lived in the past. This sketch was a part of my first solo exhibition in London in the phone box of Crystal Palace Park between March and May, 2023.
Another one was done during my second visit as the session was purposed for photography and sketching. I chose to sketch the architecture from the station end. A kind of quick urban sketching.
If you visit Crystal Palace subway, don’t forget to reserve your time for the park as well. The museum (as of writing, which was closed until further notice due to damaged by fire) showcases a lot of photos before the palace was destroyed by fire. The maze, dinosaurs, remains of aquarium, woods, secret gardens, sunrise and more.
The other areas of the park will undergo restoration very soon. As a resident before, the park was a great place for me to run and catch the sunrise in the early morning. The park will surely remain the great place not only for tourism, but also a green area bringing both physical and mental wellbeing to us, and the place to learn from the past.
