Thames Tributaries – the River Wandle - Central Croydon
Thames Tributaries – the River Wandle
Ponds and small streams around the area flow west and feed into the Wandle.
Central area of the large town of Croydon built on a medieval town centre dominated by the archbishops. Many new buildings 'Croydonisation' - plus interesting older municipal buildings, concert halls, pubs, markets - this is a proper place and not a suburb
Post to the west West Croydon
Post to the south South Croydon
Addiscombe Road
12-16 NLA House (Noble Lowndes Annuities) was Lowndes House built 1968 by R.Seifert.it is octagonal and 24 storeys high. It is Britain's 88th tallest tower and was refurbished in 2007
Barclay Road
Named after medieval poet John Barclay who lived, and is buried, locally. Supposed to be part of a Croydon ring road which never fulfilled its ambitions.
Law Courts. Designed and built in 1968/9 By Robert Atkinson & Partners,
Multi storey car park. Built in 1961-2 by D. H. Beaty-Pownall
Entrance to Park Hill Recreation Ground
Bell Hill
Narrow alleyway from the medieval period.
Restaurant, corner building, which was a 17th pub, The Britannia
Black Lion- ex 18th pub with a black lion over the doorway
Cherry Orchard Road
There were orchards here until the railway was built.
General Accident Fire and Life Insurance. 1961/3 design. Since superseded
Church Road
Once called Tramway Road because the Coulsdon, Merstham and Godstone Railway went along it. The road went on the edge of the grounds of Croydon Old Palace. This part of the tramway line ran from Church Street to Southbridge Road. First bit off the palace site to be sold was for the tramway.
Bleaching grounds once lay to the south of the palace. There was a mill attached to the pond which was involved with the manufacture of calico.
Laud's Pond, or ‘My Lord’s Pond’ was between the Palace and Church Street. The stream ran down the length of what is now Church Road and crossed it westwards near the site of the almshouses, eventually drained into the Wandle. Draining it was the first act of the Board of Health. Laud's (or My Lord's) pond provided drainage for slaughterhouses, privies, and the first gas works. Ryland’s house on the site and built on rafts because of it
O1d Courtyard house using some of the old shoe factory.
Stella House. Old shoe factory 1892 a plain industrial building, with a little polychrome brick detail. Quelch Boot and Shoe factory 1890s.
2-8 cottages mid-19th on site of palace stables, elaborately half- timbered, flint and brick
9 Ryland House Telephone exchange and offices. High building of ighH 1977. Said to be built on rafts because of the dampness of the underlying ground.
26 First Steps Day Nursery in old chapel.
27 Whitgift Arms. Closed and gone,
Mill. Chasemore Brothers Steam Flour Mills there in the 1890s. On the east side between Old Palace Road and Charles Street
Palace Wall. During its use as a factory, the Old Palace's great hall’s eastern wall collapsed into what is now Church Road. It has been rebuilt, and this is now the main school hall in Old Palace School.
Recreation ground 1890s. Now no sign of it. Mann and Halstead Close are partly on the site.
Church Street
A major shopping street winding up to Crown Hill.
128, 132, stuccoed,
Ramsey Court. This was the Elys Davy Almshouses, founded in 1447. It has two brick ranges dated 1875 and 1887 facing each other across a small garden. Listed. In red brick with a tiled roof. Wrought-iron railings along the street. Curved lamp brackets over the gates. The stream passed by the side of the north wall of the almshouse, near where it joined the main stream. It ran through a brick-arch still visible in the 1880s.
11-13 shops
15 Listed
61-65 shops 1740 brown brick row now in use as shops with modern fronts. Tiled dormers to end houses, Rendered rear walls
83 Gun Tavern Pub used as a music venue. Archaeological dig located a channel, probably a tributary of the Wandle going to Laud's Pond. The channel was probably filled for the Surrey Railway.
91-93 shops 17th timber-framed houses. The fronts were probably jettied originally but now there are modern shop fronts.
Church Street tram stop. 1998. Between George Street and Centrale and also Wandle Park on Croydon Tramlink
Cranmer Road
Cranmer was Archbishop, and stayed here, in 1522. The road is said to have been built on the site of the Bishop’s fish ponds.
Crown Hill
The Crown pub, after which the road is named, stood on the corner
1 Art Deco building. Clad in cream & black tiles with a curved plan and classical details
11/13 16th timber frame buildings faced with weatherboarding and mathematical tiles, were re constructed in 1982-3 using the original materials where possible
Tesco's – a mill stone found during building
Croydon Hippodrome Theatre, a Variety Theatre under the management of Oswald Stoll. Demolished
Civic Hall. This was where concerts were held before Fairfield Hall was built. It was long with a balcony down both sides.
Croydon
This is cited as ‘Crogedene’ 809 in an Anglo-Saxon charter, which means 1240, that is "valley where wild saffron grows', from Old English. The valley is that of the River Wandle. Crocus may have been introduced by the Romans for a dye.
In the Dark Ages Croydon was a minster – a church founded by a king as an administrative centre,
Dingwall Avenue
Dingwall House stood in what is now Wellesley Road
1-9 Link House
Focus house
London House
Alders Car Park
Dingwall Road.
Dingwall House stood in what is now Wellesley Road
1 AMP House. Australian Mutual Provident Society. 1986/7 with a broad concrete fascia, by Fuller, Hall & Foulsham. Above the door sculptural design.
17-21 Job centre
22-26 Carolyn House 1961/3. By D. Rowswell & Partners and of 17 storeys
London Assurance House
Warehouse Theatre. Founded by Sam Kelly, Richard Ireson, and Adrian Shergold to present a varied season of plays with an emphasis on new work. The first production opened in May 1977, with a 50 seat auditorium sharing the building with a Caribbean night club. It is in a converted Victorian warehouse, built in 1882 for a sand, cement, and lime merchant. It has picture tiles from the 1880's, in the cellar and a "crab" winch and wall crane in full working order on the side of the building. The bar, opened in 1985, is in the old stable block.
East side – site of railway sidings, coal yard and goods yard buildings.
Church Institute. Gone.
Fell Road
Rev. Fell lived locally
Underneath the road are two shallow tunnels running eastwards from the Town Hall basement. One goes to a manhole in a rockery beside the old public block, in Queens Gardens and was the emergency escape route from the Borough's Cold War Emergency Control Centre. The other connected the courts in the Town Hall with the former police station and cells.
George Street
The previous name was Pound Street, since it led to the town pound. The pound itself was on the Wellesley Road corner.
2-4 remains of arch which was the original entrance to the George Inn stable yard
15-23 Jubilee Buildings 1897
17-21 The George. Wetherspoon pub. The original George stood on the corner with the High Street.
25-45 built between the wars
42-44 decorated with terracotta mouldings
43-45 four storey building with ashlar stonework corner.
71-79 elaborate terracotta shopping terrace of the 1890s.
94 George IV pub, closed and demolished
96 statue of a horse and rider clearing a hedge.
100 Essex House. Slab block built 1960 by Raglan Squire & Partners. Used by British Rail, Southern Region, Divisional Manager's Office. Demolished
100 St. Matthew’s House. Eight-storey office block of 1980 which replaced St Matthew's church
St.Matthew’s church. Demolished 1972. Stood south side west of the station. It was built in 1866 by Arthur Blomfield. The Parish Hall stood parallel to it
Suffolk House. Vertical job. Among the earliest in the new Croydon. Four-storeyed throughout. By Raglan Squire & Partners, 1960
67 J.D.Shakespeare, funerals. Only remaining villa of the 1840s.
Allders frontage – main shop in the Whitgift tower
East Croydon Station. 21st September 1841 Trains from here run between London Bridge and Redhill on Thameslink; between West Croydon and also Selhurst and also Norwood Junction and South Croydon and also main line destinations on Southern Trains; Norwood Junction and main line destinations on South Eastern Trains; Plus Some other main line destinations. It is on the South Eastern Railway old main line. The present main line through the station is still the original. One of the busiest of suburban stations, with Long glazed ramps from the platforms up to the ticket office over the tracks. Now Modernised and rebuilt with a hi-tech approach and four tall masts from which hang two trusses providing a column-free space.
Junction at the south end of the station is for the railway line to South Croydon.
Junction at the south end of the station, facing London was put in for a line which went to Central Croydon Station.
East Croydon Station Tram Stop: Between Lebanon Road and Wellesley Road and also George Street on Croydon Tramlink
George Street Tram Stop. 1998 Between East Croydon and Church Street on Croydon Tramlink.
London Bar pub on the station
Porter and Sorter pub. Opened in 1880 as the Station Hotel, it was renamed in 1971
Surrey Bar pub on the station
High Street.
The High Street was originally a field path which was turnpike under the Croydon and Reigate Trust. On the west side frontages date from road widening of 1890-96 which was part of a reorganization of Middle Row.
1 National Westminster Bank –on the site of the original George Inn
5 Yates Wine Lodge in converted premises
10 GPO. Built 1893 of stone By Henry James of the Office of Works. Like much else in the road it results from the road widening of 1890-96
12 Bar Monaco. Built in 1894 by R. W. Price in brick and terracotta. Now an amusement arcade
14-18, Tiger Tiger pub Grant Department Store built in 1894 Metcalfe and Jones. Four storeys with attics above. A panel forming the initials 'GB'. Sign below says: 'Millinery/Ribbons - London House - Lace/Gloves - Silks/Dresses - London House - Mantles/Linens'. Listed
18 Edwards Pub
20-28, built 1895 by R. M. Cha
32-34, built in 1897 by Alfred Broad. An archway into an arcade leads to the steep drop down to Surrey Street.
36, Mojamba which was Babushka bar. Built 1895 by Price as offices for the Croydon Advertiser. The paper was founded in 1865 in nearby Katharine Street.
39-45a. Spread Eagle. Built as Union Bank Chambers, built by Porter & Hill in 1893. It is brick and stucco, and part of a group with the municipal buildings in Katharine Street. Three storeys and basement. Panel on the pediment with 'BUL 1893’.
46 17th building, since altered, with a jettied front
47 Ship. Old pub. Said to have been rebuilt in 1835 but there are indications of an earlier structure. Ship's figurehead between the first floor windows.
48, 1894 by Thomas Hepwell
50-52 Milletts at the fork with Surrey Sreet. Built in 1896 by Broad with a wooden turret and a balcony
Space which commemorates the widening of the High Street.
58-60 Green Dragon House. Pub
63-65 Red Square Bar
68 Black Sheep Bar
69-77 Davis House, built 1960 by G. & D. Crump,
66 Davis Picture Theatre built in 1928 by Grace & Marsh of Waddon for Robert Cromie with a capacity of over 3700. Also Kinestra. A Crompton organ installed 1928. Their most prestigious order for that year. The Davis family sold their chain of Pavilions to Gaumont-British and engaged Robert Cromie to design a super on American lines for Croydon, with over 3,800 seats. It was planned as a silent house with Symphony Orchestra and giant 21-rank Compton in four chambers above the stage, the largest Compton ever to be installed in a cinema. The plain console was on a lift and an upright piano was provided in one of the chambers. The organ was used almost continually until closure of the theatre in 1959.
119-121 brackets of human heads like those on Wrencote added by Robert Cromie in 1956 plus a rear extension.
121 Wrencote. Built 1715-20 with doorway brackets carved as beasts’ heads. Built of red rubbed brick. Inside a staircase with twisted balusters.
125 The Grand Theatre. Built by Brough in 1896 and opened by Herbert Beerbohm Tree. It was originally used for plays but by the 1920s it was a touring house. It closed in the Second World War during bombing but reopened in 1942. After the war it continued with repertory and pantomimes. It closed in 1957 despite a petition signed by 100,000 people. Offices and shops have since been built on the site.
125 Grosvenor House. Built 1960-1 by H. Hubbard Ford as an eleven-storey office block.
233 Leon House a 1968 built slab block and low rise shopping area by Tribich, Liefer & Starkin
242 Crown and Pepper pub previously the Catherine Wheel pub
282, Half and Half which has had a number of names including Barrel and Belly pub
Bridge and flyover. This cuts the High Street in two. It was constructed in 1967-68 and has pedestrian underpasses and the River Wandle culvert of 1850-51
Castle Coffee Tavern from the widening of 1890-96
Howley Road
Archbishop Howley provided a local water supply in 1843. The road is said to be laid out alongside the sites of medieval fish-ponds, which were used to supply the Palace.
Katherine Street.
This was originally Kings Arms Yard and when this road was built it was named after the landlord’s daughter.The Kings Arms is said to be where George VI would stop on his way to Brighton – and where a local drunk is said to have asked ‘where’s the wife, George’.
Town Hall and Library 1894. On the Library is a relief of two children reading comics. This is now Croydon Clocktower Centre in the old Town Hall building and including a number of facilities. The building, with its landmark clocktower, was built in 1892-6 by Charles Henman Jun. and in front is a paved area with a statue of Queen Victoria. It includes both the library and the corn exchange. The town hall porch includes Carving by J. Wenlock Robbins and W. Aumonier. Inside is a marble staircase hall and the Braithwaite Hall, with an open timber roof... The redesign dates from 1985 by Tybalds Monroe. It includes a local history museum display, the Museum of Chinese pottery and the Clocktower shop and cafe.
Central Croydon Station. Opened 1st January 1868 by the London Brighton and South Coast Railway. The entrance was on the south side of the street near the junction with Croydon High Street. There were two platforms parallel to the Street with saw tooth canopies, a cab yard there and a two storey stationmaster’s house. Trains ran from London Bridge and Kensington but it was not much used. It was rebuilt at the Corporation's request in 1886 but only took 4d on the first day. It was closed in 1890 and the site redeveloped for the Town Hall and Library. A section of cutting and retaining wall remain in the gardens.
Queen's Gardens a small area of garden which was opened by the Queen in 1983. It had previously been the Town Hall gardens and was site of Croydon's police station and Croydon Central Station. It now had lawns, trees, a fountain with benches, and a sunken garden area with formal flower beds and trees exploiting the former track bed and station wall plus original railings on top
15 Gas Board offices, Built 1939-41 by William Newton (son of Ernest Newton) in a Moderne style. The ground floor is "Empire stone" with Bronze casement windows. There is a plaque with the date 1940 and the letters C G C for Croydon Gas and Coke Company. There are pots of green smoke over the door. Inside are is a ceramic panel of shells, lotus flowers and vegetation of the Carboniferous Period and a bronze plaque to the Company's war dead.
SEGAS house, extension built 1975-81 by G. R. Toogood of the S.E. Gas Board with an arched arcade over the pavement.
Metrogas Building Society shop
War Memorial. By sculptor Paul Montford sculptor. This is a 30 ft high Portland stone pylon, with a sarcophagus on top. There are also figures of a soldier (exhibited at the Royal Academy) and a grieving widow. The original was erected for 1914-18 and 1939-45 was added later. It was unveiled in 1921 and paid for by a public subscription.
Lansdowne Road
3-5 Marco Polo House. YMCA 1958 by E.F. Starling.
17 Corinthian House by R. Seifert & Partners, 1964-5,
Royal Automobile Club offices built 1960 by R. Seifert & Partners
Roneo House. Roneo Vickers, built 1962 complex by Newman, Levinson &' Partners
Laud Street
Laud was Archbishop in 1633. A street made up of modest terraces, early 19th
Masons Avenue
2 Centrillion Point this is a redevelopment of Lennig House. 10 storeys by Tribich, Liefer & Starkin
Meadow Stile
The name reflects a more rural, but prosaic past. Alley from Queen Street to High Street.
Mint Walk
The name reflects the local aromatics industry, There was also a rope walk here.
Middle Street
3-9 Roffey and Clark's printing works was linked to their high street stationers' shop by a footbridge - now gone. Built of yellow bricks with red decoration.
North End
151 Arkwright’s Wheel Pub, previously called the Railway Bell.
Allders. This was once the main frontage of the 1926 shop. Allders is the fourth-largest department store in Britain. It was established by Joshua Allder in 1862. Allders was originally opened in 1862 at 102 and 103 North End as a 'linen draper and silk mercer'. The shop expanded into 104, 106 and 107 North End. Allder was closely involved in Croydon’s public life and died in 1904. In 1908 his family sold the business and it was developed into 50 departments with 500 staff. In 1926 the North End facade was created and in 1932 the Arcade from North End to George Street was completed. The building was damaged in the Second World War but never closed. Later it included a cinema auditorium and Croydon's first escalators in 1954. In 1958 it was sold again and in the 1960s it expanded, into the Whitgift Centre. By 1976 Allders had 1,700 staff and 500,000 square feet of floor space including the largest carpet department in Europe. Other shops in the chain were renamed and branded as Allders and the firm continued to expand with takeovers and new buildings... However the chain went into administration in 2005 and the Croydon store was bought by the owner of Jaegers.
32-34 W.H. Smith. Shops built 1926 with decorative panels. Listed.
36 Burtons. Built 1926 in Burtons House style
38-40 Horne's. Built 1910 in Arts and Crafts chequerboard style with carved decoration. Tower and gables above sheer walls
49-55 19th.
57 site of the Queen’s Cinema
59-62 19th shops in brick with carved heads
60-66 old Woolworths building 1912 brick and terracotta. Part of the frontage is the Cinematograph cinema of 1910 with carved cherubs. Listed
75 brick with decorative ironwork
77-81 1930s building in white faience. Listed
87 Rising Sun pub, arts and crafts design of 1906. Now in other use.
Whitgift Hospital of Holy Trinity. Founded by Archbishop J.Whitgift, 1596 For 16 poor brothers and 16 poor sisters from Croydon. Over the door are the arms of the founder. They are red brick almshouses round a quadrangle. Street front with three gables, Inside is a quadrangle with a 16th original clock plus a hall, laundry, chapel and common room. A suite of four upstairs rooms was originally for Whitgift himself and used by the warden. The East window was given in 1597 by, William Thornhill, Whitgift's chaplain. It was restored in 1860. Listed Grade I.
Whitgift Middle School built as the Whitgift Grammar School in 1871. Demolished 1965 and replaced by the Whitgift Centre. The school was renamed Whitgift Trinity School and moved to Shirley.
94 entrance to the Centre is the site of the Empire Cinema. Site of the Theatre Royal. This was originally built in 1800 and was rebuilt and reopened in1868 as the New Theatre Royal. In 1897 it was again redecorated and became a music hall, the Croydon Empire. It closed again a year later and reopened under a variety of names, including the Hippodrome. In 1906 it had been redecorated by Sprague as the Empire Theatre of Varieties. Films began to be shown but management mixed cinema and variety up to the early 1950s when it became the full time Eros Cinema. It was closed in 1959 and eventually demolished.
Whitgift Centre. 11 acre shopping centre built.1965/70. The architects were Fitzroy Robinson & Partners. It consists of a Centre Tower and two tall slabs, with and some lower offices flank. The pedestrian shopping mall is on two levels because of the fall of the land. There are entrances from both Wellesley Road, and North End. There is a service road underneath.
100-106 shops from the 1880s with iron balconies.
108 site of Electric Cinema
127 this was the Lido Dance Hall but built as the Prince’s Picture House in 1921
Old Palace Road
Old Palace School, a direct-grant school for girls under the control of the Community of the Sisters of the Church in the buildings of the Old Palace.
Ponds and small streams around the area flow west and feed into the Wandle.
Central area of the large town of Croydon built on a medieval town centre dominated by the archbishops. Many new buildings 'Croydonisation' - plus interesting older municipal buildings, concert halls, pubs, markets - this is a proper place and not a suburb
Post to the west West Croydon
Post to the south South Croydon
Addiscombe Road
12-16 NLA House (Noble Lowndes Annuities) was Lowndes House built 1968 by R.Seifert.it is octagonal and 24 storeys high. It is Britain's 88th tallest tower and was refurbished in 2007
Barclay Road
Named after medieval poet John Barclay who lived, and is buried, locally. Supposed to be part of a Croydon ring road which never fulfilled its ambitions.
Law Courts. Designed and built in 1968/9 By Robert Atkinson & Partners,
Multi storey car park. Built in 1961-2 by D. H. Beaty-Pownall
Entrance to Park Hill Recreation Ground
Bell Hill
Narrow alleyway from the medieval period.
Restaurant, corner building, which was a 17th pub, The Britannia
Black Lion- ex 18th pub with a black lion over the doorway
Cherry Orchard Road
There were orchards here until the railway was built.
General Accident Fire and Life Insurance. 1961/3 design. Since superseded
Church Road
Once called Tramway Road because the Coulsdon, Merstham and Godstone Railway went along it. The road went on the edge of the grounds of Croydon Old Palace. This part of the tramway line ran from Church Street to Southbridge Road. First bit off the palace site to be sold was for the tramway.
Bleaching grounds once lay to the south of the palace. There was a mill attached to the pond which was involved with the manufacture of calico.
Laud's Pond, or ‘My Lord’s Pond’ was between the Palace and Church Street. The stream ran down the length of what is now Church Road and crossed it westwards near the site of the almshouses, eventually drained into the Wandle. Draining it was the first act of the Board of Health. Laud's (or My Lord's) pond provided drainage for slaughterhouses, privies, and the first gas works. Ryland’s house on the site and built on rafts because of it
O1d Courtyard house using some of the old shoe factory.
Stella House. Old shoe factory 1892 a plain industrial building, with a little polychrome brick detail. Quelch Boot and Shoe factory 1890s.
2-8 cottages mid-19th on site of palace stables, elaborately half- timbered, flint and brick
9 Ryland House Telephone exchange and offices. High building of ighH 1977. Said to be built on rafts because of the dampness of the underlying ground.
26 First Steps Day Nursery in old chapel.
27 Whitgift Arms. Closed and gone,
Mill. Chasemore Brothers Steam Flour Mills there in the 1890s. On the east side between Old Palace Road and Charles Street
Palace Wall. During its use as a factory, the Old Palace's great hall’s eastern wall collapsed into what is now Church Road. It has been rebuilt, and this is now the main school hall in Old Palace School.
Recreation ground 1890s. Now no sign of it. Mann and Halstead Close are partly on the site.
Church Street
A major shopping street winding up to Crown Hill.
128, 132, stuccoed,
Ramsey Court. This was the Elys Davy Almshouses, founded in 1447. It has two brick ranges dated 1875 and 1887 facing each other across a small garden. Listed. In red brick with a tiled roof. Wrought-iron railings along the street. Curved lamp brackets over the gates. The stream passed by the side of the north wall of the almshouse, near where it joined the main stream. It ran through a brick-arch still visible in the 1880s.
11-13 shops
15 Listed
61-65 shops 1740 brown brick row now in use as shops with modern fronts. Tiled dormers to end houses, Rendered rear walls
83 Gun Tavern Pub used as a music venue. Archaeological dig located a channel, probably a tributary of the Wandle going to Laud's Pond. The channel was probably filled for the Surrey Railway.
91-93 shops 17th timber-framed houses. The fronts were probably jettied originally but now there are modern shop fronts.
Church Street tram stop. 1998. Between George Street and Centrale and also Wandle Park on Croydon Tramlink
Cranmer Road
Cranmer was Archbishop, and stayed here, in 1522. The road is said to have been built on the site of the Bishop’s fish ponds.
Crown Hill
The Crown pub, after which the road is named, stood on the corner
1 Art Deco building. Clad in cream & black tiles with a curved plan and classical details
11/13 16th timber frame buildings faced with weatherboarding and mathematical tiles, were re constructed in 1982-3 using the original materials where possible
Tesco's – a mill stone found during building
Croydon Hippodrome Theatre, a Variety Theatre under the management of Oswald Stoll. Demolished
Civic Hall. This was where concerts were held before Fairfield Hall was built. It was long with a balcony down both sides.
Croydon
This is cited as ‘Crogedene’ 809 in an Anglo-Saxon charter, which means 1240, that is "valley where wild saffron grows', from Old English. The valley is that of the River Wandle. Crocus may have been introduced by the Romans for a dye.
In the Dark Ages Croydon was a minster – a church founded by a king as an administrative centre,
Dingwall Avenue
Dingwall House stood in what is now Wellesley Road
1-9 Link House
Focus house
London House
Alders Car Park
Dingwall Road.
Dingwall House stood in what is now Wellesley Road
1 AMP House. Australian Mutual Provident Society. 1986/7 with a broad concrete fascia, by Fuller, Hall & Foulsham. Above the door sculptural design.
17-21 Job centre
22-26 Carolyn House 1961/3. By D. Rowswell & Partners and of 17 storeys
London Assurance House
Warehouse Theatre. Founded by Sam Kelly, Richard Ireson, and Adrian Shergold to present a varied season of plays with an emphasis on new work. The first production opened in May 1977, with a 50 seat auditorium sharing the building with a Caribbean night club. It is in a converted Victorian warehouse, built in 1882 for a sand, cement, and lime merchant. It has picture tiles from the 1880's, in the cellar and a "crab" winch and wall crane in full working order on the side of the building. The bar, opened in 1985, is in the old stable block.
East side – site of railway sidings, coal yard and goods yard buildings.
Church Institute. Gone.
Fell Road
Rev. Fell lived locally
Underneath the road are two shallow tunnels running eastwards from the Town Hall basement. One goes to a manhole in a rockery beside the old public block, in Queens Gardens and was the emergency escape route from the Borough's Cold War Emergency Control Centre. The other connected the courts in the Town Hall with the former police station and cells.
George Street
The previous name was Pound Street, since it led to the town pound. The pound itself was on the Wellesley Road corner.
2-4 remains of arch which was the original entrance to the George Inn stable yard
15-23 Jubilee Buildings 1897
17-21 The George. Wetherspoon pub. The original George stood on the corner with the High Street.
25-45 built between the wars
42-44 decorated with terracotta mouldings
43-45 four storey building with ashlar stonework corner.
71-79 elaborate terracotta shopping terrace of the 1890s.
94 George IV pub, closed and demolished
96 statue of a horse and rider clearing a hedge.
100 Essex House. Slab block built 1960 by Raglan Squire & Partners. Used by British Rail, Southern Region, Divisional Manager's Office. Demolished
100 St. Matthew’s House. Eight-storey office block of 1980 which replaced St Matthew's church
St.Matthew’s church. Demolished 1972. Stood south side west of the station. It was built in 1866 by Arthur Blomfield. The Parish Hall stood parallel to it
Suffolk House. Vertical job. Among the earliest in the new Croydon. Four-storeyed throughout. By Raglan Squire & Partners, 1960
67 J.D.Shakespeare, funerals. Only remaining villa of the 1840s.
Allders frontage – main shop in the Whitgift tower
East Croydon Station. 21st September 1841 Trains from here run between London Bridge and Redhill on Thameslink; between West Croydon and also Selhurst and also Norwood Junction and South Croydon and also main line destinations on Southern Trains; Norwood Junction and main line destinations on South Eastern Trains; Plus Some other main line destinations. It is on the South Eastern Railway old main line. The present main line through the station is still the original. One of the busiest of suburban stations, with Long glazed ramps from the platforms up to the ticket office over the tracks. Now Modernised and rebuilt with a hi-tech approach and four tall masts from which hang two trusses providing a column-free space.
Junction at the south end of the station is for the railway line to South Croydon.
Junction at the south end of the station, facing London was put in for a line which went to Central Croydon Station.
East Croydon Station Tram Stop: Between Lebanon Road and Wellesley Road and also George Street on Croydon Tramlink
George Street Tram Stop. 1998 Between East Croydon and Church Street on Croydon Tramlink.
London Bar pub on the station
Porter and Sorter pub. Opened in 1880 as the Station Hotel, it was renamed in 1971
Surrey Bar pub on the station
High Street.
The High Street was originally a field path which was turnpike under the Croydon and Reigate Trust. On the west side frontages date from road widening of 1890-96 which was part of a reorganization of Middle Row.
1 National Westminster Bank –on the site of the original George Inn
5 Yates Wine Lodge in converted premises
10 GPO. Built 1893 of stone By Henry James of the Office of Works. Like much else in the road it results from the road widening of 1890-96
12 Bar Monaco. Built in 1894 by R. W. Price in brick and terracotta. Now an amusement arcade
14-18, Tiger Tiger pub Grant Department Store built in 1894 Metcalfe and Jones. Four storeys with attics above. A panel forming the initials 'GB'. Sign below says: 'Millinery/Ribbons - London House - Lace/Gloves - Silks/Dresses - London House - Mantles/Linens'. Listed
18 Edwards Pub
20-28, built 1895 by R. M. Cha
32-34, built in 1897 by Alfred Broad. An archway into an arcade leads to the steep drop down to Surrey Street.
36, Mojamba which was Babushka bar. Built 1895 by Price as offices for the Croydon Advertiser. The paper was founded in 1865 in nearby Katharine Street.
39-45a. Spread Eagle. Built as Union Bank Chambers, built by Porter & Hill in 1893. It is brick and stucco, and part of a group with the municipal buildings in Katharine Street. Three storeys and basement. Panel on the pediment with 'BUL 1893’.
46 17th building, since altered, with a jettied front
47 Ship. Old pub. Said to have been rebuilt in 1835 but there are indications of an earlier structure. Ship's figurehead between the first floor windows.
48, 1894 by Thomas Hepwell
50-52 Milletts at the fork with Surrey Sreet. Built in 1896 by Broad with a wooden turret and a balcony
Space which commemorates the widening of the High Street.
58-60 Green Dragon House. Pub
63-65 Red Square Bar
68 Black Sheep Bar
69-77 Davis House, built 1960 by G. & D. Crump,
66 Davis Picture Theatre built in 1928 by Grace & Marsh of Waddon for Robert Cromie with a capacity of over 3700. Also Kinestra. A Crompton organ installed 1928. Their most prestigious order for that year. The Davis family sold their chain of Pavilions to Gaumont-British and engaged Robert Cromie to design a super on American lines for Croydon, with over 3,800 seats. It was planned as a silent house with Symphony Orchestra and giant 21-rank Compton in four chambers above the stage, the largest Compton ever to be installed in a cinema. The plain console was on a lift and an upright piano was provided in one of the chambers. The organ was used almost continually until closure of the theatre in 1959.
119-121 brackets of human heads like those on Wrencote added by Robert Cromie in 1956 plus a rear extension.
121 Wrencote. Built 1715-20 with doorway brackets carved as beasts’ heads. Built of red rubbed brick. Inside a staircase with twisted balusters.
125 The Grand Theatre. Built by Brough in 1896 and opened by Herbert Beerbohm Tree. It was originally used for plays but by the 1920s it was a touring house. It closed in the Second World War during bombing but reopened in 1942. After the war it continued with repertory and pantomimes. It closed in 1957 despite a petition signed by 100,000 people. Offices and shops have since been built on the site.
125 Grosvenor House. Built 1960-1 by H. Hubbard Ford as an eleven-storey office block.
233 Leon House a 1968 built slab block and low rise shopping area by Tribich, Liefer & Starkin
242 Crown and Pepper pub previously the Catherine Wheel pub
282, Half and Half which has had a number of names including Barrel and Belly pub
Bridge and flyover. This cuts the High Street in two. It was constructed in 1967-68 and has pedestrian underpasses and the River Wandle culvert of 1850-51
Castle Coffee Tavern from the widening of 1890-96
Howley Road
Archbishop Howley provided a local water supply in 1843. The road is said to be laid out alongside the sites of medieval fish-ponds, which were used to supply the Palace.
Katherine Street.
This was originally Kings Arms Yard and when this road was built it was named after the landlord’s daughter.The Kings Arms is said to be where George VI would stop on his way to Brighton – and where a local drunk is said to have asked ‘where’s the wife, George’.
Town Hall and Library 1894. On the Library is a relief of two children reading comics. This is now Croydon Clocktower Centre in the old Town Hall building and including a number of facilities. The building, with its landmark clocktower, was built in 1892-6 by Charles Henman Jun. and in front is a paved area with a statue of Queen Victoria. It includes both the library and the corn exchange. The town hall porch includes Carving by J. Wenlock Robbins and W. Aumonier. Inside is a marble staircase hall and the Braithwaite Hall, with an open timber roof... The redesign dates from 1985 by Tybalds Monroe. It includes a local history museum display, the Museum of Chinese pottery and the Clocktower shop and cafe.
Central Croydon Station. Opened 1st January 1868 by the London Brighton and South Coast Railway. The entrance was on the south side of the street near the junction with Croydon High Street. There were two platforms parallel to the Street with saw tooth canopies, a cab yard there and a two storey stationmaster’s house. Trains ran from London Bridge and Kensington but it was not much used. It was rebuilt at the Corporation's request in 1886 but only took 4d on the first day. It was closed in 1890 and the site redeveloped for the Town Hall and Library. A section of cutting and retaining wall remain in the gardens.
Queen's Gardens a small area of garden which was opened by the Queen in 1983. It had previously been the Town Hall gardens and was site of Croydon's police station and Croydon Central Station. It now had lawns, trees, a fountain with benches, and a sunken garden area with formal flower beds and trees exploiting the former track bed and station wall plus original railings on top
15 Gas Board offices, Built 1939-41 by William Newton (son of Ernest Newton) in a Moderne style. The ground floor is "Empire stone" with Bronze casement windows. There is a plaque with the date 1940 and the letters C G C for Croydon Gas and Coke Company. There are pots of green smoke over the door. Inside are is a ceramic panel of shells, lotus flowers and vegetation of the Carboniferous Period and a bronze plaque to the Company's war dead.
SEGAS house, extension built 1975-81 by G. R. Toogood of the S.E. Gas Board with an arched arcade over the pavement.
Metrogas Building Society shop
War Memorial. By sculptor Paul Montford sculptor. This is a 30 ft high Portland stone pylon, with a sarcophagus on top. There are also figures of a soldier (exhibited at the Royal Academy) and a grieving widow. The original was erected for 1914-18 and 1939-45 was added later. It was unveiled in 1921 and paid for by a public subscription.
Lansdowne Road
3-5 Marco Polo House. YMCA 1958 by E.F. Starling.
17 Corinthian House by R. Seifert & Partners, 1964-5,
Royal Automobile Club offices built 1960 by R. Seifert & Partners
Roneo House. Roneo Vickers, built 1962 complex by Newman, Levinson &' Partners
Laud Street
Laud was Archbishop in 1633. A street made up of modest terraces, early 19th
Masons Avenue
2 Centrillion Point this is a redevelopment of Lennig House. 10 storeys by Tribich, Liefer & Starkin
Meadow Stile
The name reflects a more rural, but prosaic past. Alley from Queen Street to High Street.
Mint Walk
The name reflects the local aromatics industry, There was also a rope walk here.
Middle Street
3-9 Roffey and Clark's printing works was linked to their high street stationers' shop by a footbridge - now gone. Built of yellow bricks with red decoration.
North End
151 Arkwright’s Wheel Pub, previously called the Railway Bell.
Allders. This was once the main frontage of the 1926 shop. Allders is the fourth-largest department store in Britain. It was established by Joshua Allder in 1862. Allders was originally opened in 1862 at 102 and 103 North End as a 'linen draper and silk mercer'. The shop expanded into 104, 106 and 107 North End. Allder was closely involved in Croydon’s public life and died in 1904. In 1908 his family sold the business and it was developed into 50 departments with 500 staff. In 1926 the North End facade was created and in 1932 the Arcade from North End to George Street was completed. The building was damaged in the Second World War but never closed. Later it included a cinema auditorium and Croydon's first escalators in 1954. In 1958 it was sold again and in the 1960s it expanded, into the Whitgift Centre. By 1976 Allders had 1,700 staff and 500,000 square feet of floor space including the largest carpet department in Europe. Other shops in the chain were renamed and branded as Allders and the firm continued to expand with takeovers and new buildings... However the chain went into administration in 2005 and the Croydon store was bought by the owner of Jaegers.
32-34 W.H. Smith. Shops built 1926 with decorative panels. Listed.
36 Burtons. Built 1926 in Burtons House style
38-40 Horne's. Built 1910 in Arts and Crafts chequerboard style with carved decoration. Tower and gables above sheer walls
49-55 19th.
57 site of the Queen’s Cinema
59-62 19th shops in brick with carved heads
60-66 old Woolworths building 1912 brick and terracotta. Part of the frontage is the Cinematograph cinema of 1910 with carved cherubs. Listed
75 brick with decorative ironwork
77-81 1930s building in white faience. Listed
87 Rising Sun pub, arts and crafts design of 1906. Now in other use.
Whitgift Hospital of Holy Trinity. Founded by Archbishop J.Whitgift, 1596 For 16 poor brothers and 16 poor sisters from Croydon. Over the door are the arms of the founder. They are red brick almshouses round a quadrangle. Street front with three gables, Inside is a quadrangle with a 16th original clock plus a hall, laundry, chapel and common room. A suite of four upstairs rooms was originally for Whitgift himself and used by the warden. The East window was given in 1597 by, William Thornhill, Whitgift's chaplain. It was restored in 1860. Listed Grade I.
Whitgift Middle School built as the Whitgift Grammar School in 1871. Demolished 1965 and replaced by the Whitgift Centre. The school was renamed Whitgift Trinity School and moved to Shirley.
94 entrance to the Centre is the site of the Empire Cinema. Site of the Theatre Royal. This was originally built in 1800 and was rebuilt and reopened in1868 as the New Theatre Royal. In 1897 it was again redecorated and became a music hall, the Croydon Empire. It closed again a year later and reopened under a variety of names, including the Hippodrome. In 1906 it had been redecorated by Sprague as the Empire Theatre of Varieties. Films began to be shown but management mixed cinema and variety up to the early 1950s when it became the full time Eros Cinema. It was closed in 1959 and eventually demolished.
Whitgift Centre. 11 acre shopping centre built.1965/70. The architects were Fitzroy Robinson & Partners. It consists of a Centre Tower and two tall slabs, with and some lower offices flank. The pedestrian shopping mall is on two levels because of the fall of the land. There are entrances from both Wellesley Road, and North End. There is a service road underneath.
100-106 shops from the 1880s with iron balconies.
108 site of Electric Cinema
127 this was the Lido Dance Hall but built as the Prince’s Picture House in 1921
Old Palace Road
Old Palace School, a direct-grant school for girls under the control of the Community of the Sisters of the Church in the buildings of the Old Palace.
Archbishops Palace. This was founded by Lanfranc in 11th and so the Manor belonged to the Archbishop of Canterbury before Domesday. Before modern drainage and intense building up of the area the Palace was surrounded by streams and ponds and was essentially on an island. A room called The Guardroom may have been a 12th hall. This was one of the series of palaces between Canterbury and Lambeth, and became an administrative centre. . Used continuously by the archbishops until 1758 and in 1780 and enabling act of Parliament allowed sale. The Great Hall dates from 1381 but was refurnished by Archbishop Morton in 1443/52. Used cThe palace now consists of a group of buildings mostly 14th and 15th. The Archbishops sold the palace in 1780 and some buildings were demolished. The Duke of Newcastle presented the complex to the Sisters of the Cross, in 1887 as a girls' school.
Calico printing factory with extensive machinery stood on the north western corner of the palace. Using water-power from an artificial branch of the stream. In 1792 the palace area was used as a calico printing works by Abraham Pitches and in 1798 Samuel Starey used it for a calico printing and bleaching factory and this continued until 1872
Pickfords - long three storey building which was Pickford's, removal and warehousing company, first depot.
Overton's Yard
Site of steam flourmill – Mill stones have been found on site,
Royal Oak Brewery. Page and Overton were brewers. Page had owned the Ludlam and Grant Brewery at Shirley and he joined Overton in the Royal Oak Brewery. Taken over by Hoare’s in 1929 and became Charrington in 1933. It closed in 1954
Croydon's first gas works in what had been a fellmonger’s yard, adjacent. This was built by Barnard and Defries in 1827. Henry Overton owned and ran it until 1847 when it was taken over by the Croydon Gas Light & Coke Co. Nearby was a medieval stone-vaulted Undercroft
Park Lane
Fairfield - where the annual fair was held – they were suppressed in 1868. The area then was a site for railway lines from East Croydon to Central Croydon as well as gravel pits, railway sidings and a railway training school.
Fairfield Yard. What was left of the railway line to the Central Croydon Station. It was used for railway engineering until 1933. It was then sold to the Corporation and used as a car park Relics of the line are earthworks near the Town Hall.
Underpass dates from the 1960s.
Fairfield Halls. Built 1960 by Robert Atkinson & Partners as an 1,800 seat concert Hall.
Arnhem Hall. Named for a link with Arnhem. A 500 seat multi seat space.
Ashcroft Theatre. Named for actress Peggy Ashcroft who was born in Croydon. A 750 seat theatre
Blue Orchid pub used to be the Greyhound. Also called Bogarts. The Greyhound was a coaching inn clearing coaches between Brighton and London. As the Blue Orchid it was a punk rock venue. Closed down now.
Taberner House and Alsop’s Third City Vision. Stands behind the Town Hall on both sides of Fell Road and fronts onto Park Lane. A 19 storey high slab Municipal office block built 1964-7. Designed by H. Thornley, architect to the Council. There is a bridge between the blocks. Built in 1964-8. Amazing views. Named after Ernest Taberner the ex-Town Clerk
69 Commercial Union House. 1965/8 office block home to head office departments of Commercial Union Assurance, from the early 1980s until merger with first General Accident (to form CGU) then Norwich Union to form Aviva Plc. The last of the company's departments - the local sales office - vacated the building in 2005. There are luxury flats included.
71 Police Station. By J. Elliott chief architect to the Metropolitan Police planned 1967, completed 1980.
St.George's House. Nestle HQ. Designed by Ronald Ward & Partners with St George's Walk inside.
60 Friends Meeting House. The meeting house proper is by Hubert Lidbetter in yellow brick. The Adult School Hall adjoins the current Quaker meeting house. It was opened in 1908. It was founded by Theodore Crosfield, a 19th-century Quaker. The previous meeting house of 1820, destroyed by a land mine in 1940, and the foreground area was a Quaker burial ground. It’s simple headstones were re-laid horizontally as a path along the western side The Hall was designed by William Curtis. It is built of local brick and Pine column support an open timber roof. Nothing is concealed.
Croydon College - Technical College. The Pitlake Technical Institute was founded in 1888, and later became Croydon Polytechnic. In 1868, the School of Art had been founded in George Street and in 1932 was taken over by the Council. In 1941 the Polytechnic school was burnt down and in 1948 it was planned to merge the two and in 1953 building work started. It was then the largest technical college in the South of England. Designed by Robert Atkinson & Partners in Brick and Portland stone.
Pump Pail
Name of slip road which is the site of the parish pump and its fence.
Croydon Bowling Club included walls and buildings made of sleeper blocks from the Croydon, Godstone and Merstham Tramway. Demolished when the flyover was built.
Buriel Ground which was flooded by the Bourne - so that coffins sometimes floated.
Queen Street
This was once a footpath going from the High Street to Duppas Hill. It Crossed the Wandle by way of a brick four arched footbridge. The Wandle here was 20' wide
Salem Place
An area of council homes built on what was in the 19th- century called Bog Island. The entire area was waterlogged and insanitary. Eventually the ponds were filled in by the new local Board of Health.
Scarbrook Lane
The Scarbrook itself was a tributary of the Wandle. Early in the 19th the road ran between springs and ponds. But these went as a result of the 1848 Public Health Act when Croydon Local Board of Health was set up and developed a mains water supply and drainage, before Bazalgette. The road follows what was the west side of the Coulsdon, Merstham and Godstone trackbed.
Croydon Central Baths. With an indoor pool was built in 1866 And an outdoor pool which closed in the 1950s. The complex closed in 1973.
Scarbrook Chambers
Central School was the original John Ruskin College which opened in 1920. In 1945 it became a Grammar School having moved to Tamworth Road. It subsequently moved to Selsdon.
Croydon Polytechnic had begun in 1888 as the Pitlake Technical Institute. Burnt down in 1941 but eventually became part of Croydon Technical College.
Borough Grammar School for Boys opened in 1904 using the same buildings as the Polytechnic. During and after the First World War it moved to a purpose built school in The Crescent, Selhurst.
Surrey House
Sheldon Street
Sheldon was Archbishop in 1663
An intermittent spring at the western end of the road fed the Wandle
1 Royal Standard small Fuller's pub extended in the early 1990s.a step leads down to a stone-flagged area which could easily be the oldest part of the building, but is in fact the newest. A cricket bat signed by the 2002 Surrey team in the lounge.
Surrey Street
At one time known as the Shambles. The street market here is medieval in origin with a charter dating from 1273 and Surrey Street was recorded as ‘Le Bocherrowe’ in 1549 - “butchers' row'. It was also known as Fleshe Market. In the 1890s that was the first area of redevelopment in Croydon when what was then a slum district of medieval streets, alleyways and tenements was cleared and the High Street widened.
The Scarbrook stream crossed the road coming from the Scarbrook ponds and going to the Palace fishponds.
24 Dog and Bull. Especially handsome red brick front. Yard survives. 18th-century, listed building in Croydon's street market behind the 21st-century Grants leisure complex. Bare wooden floors throughout the bar area
44 Horn and Trumpet pub. Demolished
34-38 Butcher Row projecting first floors supported on iron and timber columns retaining the earlier name of the area. The row once had hooks and rails under galleried upper floors so that butchered items could be displayed. Mathematical tiles in the upper levels give an impression of bricks.
Croydon Advertiser's former printing works were beside the footbridge to the multi-storey car park.
Multi storey car park. The ground floor level is used to store market-stalls.
Sturt's Yard, otherwise Waterworks Yard has lost both its names. The yard represented a lost path from Surrey Street to the Benson Spring. It was called Spring Walk.
Water Works. This is a brown brick and stone building displaying the date 1851. It was part of the West Croydon engine house of the Atmospheric Railway re-erected here for the Croydon Local Board of Health by Cox. But it was not reassembled to exactly the same design. The building in Surrey Street is taller than the original although re-used bricks, windows and doors can be recognised. The tall chimney has gone. There was another engine house on site - A castellated tower-like building added in 1867 by Baldwin Latham, engineer of the Croydon Local Board with an extension to house a compound horizontal engine added in 1876 and there were further additions. From here water was pumped to the town's first reservoir at Park Hill, which has since been demolished, and from 1867 the surviving water tower. Although these buildings are redundant the wells are still pumped using remote controlled electric pumps.
Benson Spring - this was another spring which flowed down to the Wandle. It rose 50 feet north of the engine house and was said never to freeze.
Tamworth Road.
The road was laid out in 1845 along the line of the railway which had been laid from the canal basin, at what is now West Croydon station. The surrounding land had been bought for development by the Croydon and Epsom Railway.
Centrale Tram stop. 1998. Between Church Street and also Reeves Corner and West Croydon on Croydon Tramlink
Tramway approximately the alignment of the Croydon Canal Company's tramway to Pitlake
Barlow and Parker's warehouse, on the roof of which Christopher Craig and Derek William Bentley were caught in attempted burglary in 1952, was on the north side about halfway down.
Wandle Road
Course of old road from Croydon to Waddon. A pocket of modest streets of little terraces, earlier c19
Classical chapel now housing
Bull’s Head pub.
Wellesley Road
This was called New Lane but renamed in 1852 for the Duke of Wellington. It is effectively now the main road through Croydon between London and Portslade and part of the fast-traffic system constructed in the 1960s. The underpass under George Street into Park Lane, the flyover above the High Street and the widening of Old Town and Church Street belong to the same period.
128 The Goose and Carrot. Gay pub once called the Bridge Hotel
Black Clawson House 1962, by Newman, Levinson & Partners
20-26 Norfolk House 1958 the start of the new Croydon. Right angles to the street. By Howell & Brooks, T.P. Bennett & Son, consultants. A tall slab which includes the hotel, Jury’s Inn
30 Voyager house
40 Lunar House
9 Prudential. 1962 by Roy Moore Associates, Sydney Clough, Son & Partners,
Southern House 1963/7. By G. & D. Crump
36 Apollo House, Lunar House continues. The entrance motifs are identical.
11 Phoenix House
Electricity House former Municipal Offices of Water and Electricity Departments, begun in the late 1930s and in partial use from 1941. Built 1939-42 by Robert Atkinson for the County Borough of Croydon of Portland stone on a prominent corner site. In Dingwall Avenue there was a carriage entrance to a circular courtyard and it was planned as a cookery demonstration hall. eight-bay frontage to Wellesley Road with Bronze double doors in moulded black marble surround, with steps and a canopy with inset round lights, on a granite plinth is 'County Borough of Croydon Electricity Department'. Parapet, with bronze tripartite glazing. On columns are carved square urns, dedicated to 'fire', 'air', 'earth', 'water', 'time', 'energy', 'flight', 'Elysium', and 'Hesperides'.
Wellesley Road Tram stop. 1998. Between East Croydon and West Croydon on Croydon Tramlink
Sources
Anderson. History of the Parish of Croydon
Bayliss. The Surrey Iron Railway
Bourne Society. Journal
Bygone Kent
Canals of Croydon and Surrey,
Chelsea Speleological Society, Newsletter
Clunn. The Face of London,
Croydon by gas light,
London Archaeologist,
London Encyclopaedia
Nairn. Nairn’s London
Osborne. Defending London
Penguin, Surrey
Pevsner and Cherry, South London
Pevsner and Cherry. Surrey
Stewart. History of Croydon
Thames Basin Archaeology of Industry. Report
Wilson. London’s Industrial Archaeology
Pickfords - long three storey building which was Pickford's, removal and warehousing company, first depot.
Overton's Yard
Site of steam flourmill – Mill stones have been found on site,
Royal Oak Brewery. Page and Overton were brewers. Page had owned the Ludlam and Grant Brewery at Shirley and he joined Overton in the Royal Oak Brewery. Taken over by Hoare’s in 1929 and became Charrington in 1933. It closed in 1954
Croydon's first gas works in what had been a fellmonger’s yard, adjacent. This was built by Barnard and Defries in 1827. Henry Overton owned and ran it until 1847 when it was taken over by the Croydon Gas Light & Coke Co. Nearby was a medieval stone-vaulted Undercroft
Park Lane
Fairfield - where the annual fair was held – they were suppressed in 1868. The area then was a site for railway lines from East Croydon to Central Croydon as well as gravel pits, railway sidings and a railway training school.
Fairfield Yard. What was left of the railway line to the Central Croydon Station. It was used for railway engineering until 1933. It was then sold to the Corporation and used as a car park Relics of the line are earthworks near the Town Hall.
Underpass dates from the 1960s.
Fairfield Halls. Built 1960 by Robert Atkinson & Partners as an 1,800 seat concert Hall.
Arnhem Hall. Named for a link with Arnhem. A 500 seat multi seat space.
Ashcroft Theatre. Named for actress Peggy Ashcroft who was born in Croydon. A 750 seat theatre
Blue Orchid pub used to be the Greyhound. Also called Bogarts. The Greyhound was a coaching inn clearing coaches between Brighton and London. As the Blue Orchid it was a punk rock venue. Closed down now.
Taberner House and Alsop’s Third City Vision. Stands behind the Town Hall on both sides of Fell Road and fronts onto Park Lane. A 19 storey high slab Municipal office block built 1964-7. Designed by H. Thornley, architect to the Council. There is a bridge between the blocks. Built in 1964-8. Amazing views. Named after Ernest Taberner the ex-Town Clerk
69 Commercial Union House. 1965/8 office block home to head office departments of Commercial Union Assurance, from the early 1980s until merger with first General Accident (to form CGU) then Norwich Union to form Aviva Plc. The last of the company's departments - the local sales office - vacated the building in 2005. There are luxury flats included.
71 Police Station. By J. Elliott chief architect to the Metropolitan Police planned 1967, completed 1980.
St.George's House. Nestle HQ. Designed by Ronald Ward & Partners with St George's Walk inside.
60 Friends Meeting House. The meeting house proper is by Hubert Lidbetter in yellow brick. The Adult School Hall adjoins the current Quaker meeting house. It was opened in 1908. It was founded by Theodore Crosfield, a 19th-century Quaker. The previous meeting house of 1820, destroyed by a land mine in 1940, and the foreground area was a Quaker burial ground. It’s simple headstones were re-laid horizontally as a path along the western side The Hall was designed by William Curtis. It is built of local brick and Pine column support an open timber roof. Nothing is concealed.
Croydon College - Technical College. The Pitlake Technical Institute was founded in 1888, and later became Croydon Polytechnic. In 1868, the School of Art had been founded in George Street and in 1932 was taken over by the Council. In 1941 the Polytechnic school was burnt down and in 1948 it was planned to merge the two and in 1953 building work started. It was then the largest technical college in the South of England. Designed by Robert Atkinson & Partners in Brick and Portland stone.
Pump Pail
Name of slip road which is the site of the parish pump and its fence.
Croydon Bowling Club included walls and buildings made of sleeper blocks from the Croydon, Godstone and Merstham Tramway. Demolished when the flyover was built.
Buriel Ground which was flooded by the Bourne - so that coffins sometimes floated.
Queen Street
This was once a footpath going from the High Street to Duppas Hill. It Crossed the Wandle by way of a brick four arched footbridge. The Wandle here was 20' wide
Salem Place
An area of council homes built on what was in the 19th- century called Bog Island. The entire area was waterlogged and insanitary. Eventually the ponds were filled in by the new local Board of Health.
Scarbrook Lane
The Scarbrook itself was a tributary of the Wandle. Early in the 19th the road ran between springs and ponds. But these went as a result of the 1848 Public Health Act when Croydon Local Board of Health was set up and developed a mains water supply and drainage, before Bazalgette. The road follows what was the west side of the Coulsdon, Merstham and Godstone trackbed.
Croydon Central Baths. With an indoor pool was built in 1866 And an outdoor pool which closed in the 1950s. The complex closed in 1973.
Scarbrook Chambers
Central School was the original John Ruskin College which opened in 1920. In 1945 it became a Grammar School having moved to Tamworth Road. It subsequently moved to Selsdon.
Croydon Polytechnic had begun in 1888 as the Pitlake Technical Institute. Burnt down in 1941 but eventually became part of Croydon Technical College.
Borough Grammar School for Boys opened in 1904 using the same buildings as the Polytechnic. During and after the First World War it moved to a purpose built school in The Crescent, Selhurst.
Surrey House
Sheldon Street
Sheldon was Archbishop in 1663
An intermittent spring at the western end of the road fed the Wandle
1 Royal Standard small Fuller's pub extended in the early 1990s.a step leads down to a stone-flagged area which could easily be the oldest part of the building, but is in fact the newest. A cricket bat signed by the 2002 Surrey team in the lounge.
Surrey Street
At one time known as the Shambles. The street market here is medieval in origin with a charter dating from 1273 and Surrey Street was recorded as ‘Le Bocherrowe’ in 1549 - “butchers' row'. It was also known as Fleshe Market. In the 1890s that was the first area of redevelopment in Croydon when what was then a slum district of medieval streets, alleyways and tenements was cleared and the High Street widened.
The Scarbrook stream crossed the road coming from the Scarbrook ponds and going to the Palace fishponds.
24 Dog and Bull. Especially handsome red brick front. Yard survives. 18th-century, listed building in Croydon's street market behind the 21st-century Grants leisure complex. Bare wooden floors throughout the bar area
44 Horn and Trumpet pub. Demolished
34-38 Butcher Row projecting first floors supported on iron and timber columns retaining the earlier name of the area. The row once had hooks and rails under galleried upper floors so that butchered items could be displayed. Mathematical tiles in the upper levels give an impression of bricks.
Croydon Advertiser's former printing works were beside the footbridge to the multi-storey car park.
Multi storey car park. The ground floor level is used to store market-stalls.
Sturt's Yard, otherwise Waterworks Yard has lost both its names. The yard represented a lost path from Surrey Street to the Benson Spring. It was called Spring Walk.
Water Works. This is a brown brick and stone building displaying the date 1851. It was part of the West Croydon engine house of the Atmospheric Railway re-erected here for the Croydon Local Board of Health by Cox. But it was not reassembled to exactly the same design. The building in Surrey Street is taller than the original although re-used bricks, windows and doors can be recognised. The tall chimney has gone. There was another engine house on site - A castellated tower-like building added in 1867 by Baldwin Latham, engineer of the Croydon Local Board with an extension to house a compound horizontal engine added in 1876 and there were further additions. From here water was pumped to the town's first reservoir at Park Hill, which has since been demolished, and from 1867 the surviving water tower. Although these buildings are redundant the wells are still pumped using remote controlled electric pumps.
Benson Spring - this was another spring which flowed down to the Wandle. It rose 50 feet north of the engine house and was said never to freeze.
Tamworth Road.
The road was laid out in 1845 along the line of the railway which had been laid from the canal basin, at what is now West Croydon station. The surrounding land had been bought for development by the Croydon and Epsom Railway.
Centrale Tram stop. 1998. Between Church Street and also Reeves Corner and West Croydon on Croydon Tramlink
Tramway approximately the alignment of the Croydon Canal Company's tramway to Pitlake
Barlow and Parker's warehouse, on the roof of which Christopher Craig and Derek William Bentley were caught in attempted burglary in 1952, was on the north side about halfway down.
Wandle Road
Course of old road from Croydon to Waddon. A pocket of modest streets of little terraces, earlier c19
Classical chapel now housing
Bull’s Head pub.
Wellesley Road
This was called New Lane but renamed in 1852 for the Duke of Wellington. It is effectively now the main road through Croydon between London and Portslade and part of the fast-traffic system constructed in the 1960s. The underpass under George Street into Park Lane, the flyover above the High Street and the widening of Old Town and Church Street belong to the same period.
128 The Goose and Carrot. Gay pub once called the Bridge Hotel
Black Clawson House 1962, by Newman, Levinson & Partners
20-26 Norfolk House 1958 the start of the new Croydon. Right angles to the street. By Howell & Brooks, T.P. Bennett & Son, consultants. A tall slab which includes the hotel, Jury’s Inn
30 Voyager house
40 Lunar House
9 Prudential. 1962 by Roy Moore Associates, Sydney Clough, Son & Partners,
Southern House 1963/7. By G. & D. Crump
36 Apollo House, Lunar House continues. The entrance motifs are identical.
11 Phoenix House
Electricity House former Municipal Offices of Water and Electricity Departments, begun in the late 1930s and in partial use from 1941. Built 1939-42 by Robert Atkinson for the County Borough of Croydon of Portland stone on a prominent corner site. In Dingwall Avenue there was a carriage entrance to a circular courtyard and it was planned as a cookery demonstration hall. eight-bay frontage to Wellesley Road with Bronze double doors in moulded black marble surround, with steps and a canopy with inset round lights, on a granite plinth is 'County Borough of Croydon Electricity Department'. Parapet, with bronze tripartite glazing. On columns are carved square urns, dedicated to 'fire', 'air', 'earth', 'water', 'time', 'energy', 'flight', 'Elysium', and 'Hesperides'.
Wellesley Road Tram stop. 1998. Between East Croydon and West Croydon on Croydon Tramlink
Sources
Anderson. History of the Parish of Croydon
Bayliss. The Surrey Iron Railway
Bourne Society. Journal
Bygone Kent
Canals of Croydon and Surrey,
Chelsea Speleological Society, Newsletter
Clunn. The Face of London,
Croydon by gas light,
London Archaeologist,
London Encyclopaedia
Nairn. Nairn’s London
Osborne. Defending London
Penguin, Surrey
Pevsner and Cherry, South London
Pevsner and Cherry. Surrey
Stewart. History of Croydon
Thames Basin Archaeology of Industry. Report
Wilson. London’s Industrial Archaeology
Comments
Joyce Pollon.