London area guide: Crystal Palace

Crystal Palace is a personal favourite hangout of mine. It's local, I grew up in the area & it's a microcosm of independence in an otherwise busy & cluttered South East London. When you tell people you love Crystal Palace, they assume you mean the football team, whose ground is around 2 miles away from what I'm intending to profess my love me for. I'm talking about "The Triangle", a trio of streets that are home to an abundance of coffee shops, artisan cafe's, restaurants & antique/reclamation stores. All of which are independent might I add.

http://westowhouse.com/

http://www.thecrystalpalacemarket.com/the-shop/index.html

Church Lane is loaded with a strip of second hand furniture shops, some of which have bakeries & coffee shops in. It makes for a perfect afternoon out for anyone wanting to find something well designed & properly crafted. I spend plenty of time decorating my imaginary flat here (something I do far to often, but will become a reality soon . . . maybe)

Seeing as it was home to a royal palace made entirely of glass & steel, the area's architecture is predominantly Victorian & untouched. There are always rumours that the Crystal Palace will be rebuilt by developers, but instead we are left with the ruins of it's foundations. Which are stunning. Sadly, in 1936, a fire burnt the palace into a pile of steel, leaving only the stone terraces. The scale of the Crystal Palace is almost impossible to believe. The picture below shows just how big it was. If this was still standing today, it would be a world famous piece of architecture, undoubtably changing the very social fabric of South East London. Luckily we still have the beautiful grounds in Crystal Palace park to wonder.

It seems that every time I pop into Crystal Palace there's a new spot to grab a coffee, beer or meal. Brown & Green is the newest addition. I only grabbed a coffee & pastry on this occasion. I've visited a couple of times since for food & can fully recommend a visit! - http://www.brown-and-green.co.uk/

I could quite easily sit here all day chatting away about all the things I love about this tiny corner of London. I hope that this little photographic journal has persuaded you to hop on a train and spend an afternoon discovering South London's finest. 

There will probably be a "Part 2" later in 2016 ;) 

Dan x