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  • I'm in Crystal Palace Park, in south London, and there are dinosaurs.

  • Models of dinosaurs, anyway. And inaccurate models at that:

  • but that's because they're more than 150 years old.

  • These were the first ever lifesize models of extinct creatures,

  • built for the gardens of the enormous Crystal Palace

  • that used to stand on top of that hill over there.

  • They were made by the wonderfully-named Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins,

  • we now know that they are utterly wrong in many significant ways,

  • but at the time they were a marvel:

  • look at what once walked the earth!

  • Now, in England, there's a list of buildings that have special protection under the law.

  • Buildings on that list are called... Listed Buildings.

  • Because they're on the list.

  • Of buildings.

  • And this country's full of them: Historic England,

  • the not-quite-government organisation that manages the list,

  • says there's about half a million buildings on it.

  • Most of those are only Grade 2 listed,

  • which means they've got to be kept mostly intact,

  • and any changes need a really good reason behind them,

  • but more than 10,000 places are Grade 1 listed,

  • which means they must be preserved.

  • Pretty much anything that was built more than 200 years ago and is still standing is on the list,

  • but there are some more modern things too... including these dinosaurs.

  • Yep. Grade 1 listed dinosaurs. Can't be changed, moved, or demolished,

  • have to kept in good condition.

  • And they can't be updated to reflect what modern palaeontologists know,

  • because that would involve changing them,

  • and destroying not a dinosaur display --

  • but a display about what we once thought dinosaurs looked like,

  • something that's notable not because of what it represents in itself,

  • but because of the history in the sculptures.

  • These dinosaurs must, by law, remain inaccurate,

  • because the story they tell isn't about prehistoric times...

  • it's about science, just 150 years ago.

  • I've done a video with Minute Earth about Null Island,

  • the busiest place that doesn't exist.

  • You can check go it out on their channel.

  • [Translating these subtitles? Add your name here!]

I'm in Crystal Palace Park, in south London, and there are dinosaurs.

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