Ampere Way Waddon Marsh
Post to the south Beddington
Ampere Way
This is a spine road leading from Purley Way up into the IKEA store, or beyond. It follows the tram line and hence it follows the line of the preceding railway line.
Named for Andre Marie Ampere born 1775 at Lyon, France, after whom the unit of electrical current is named, and reflecting the electrical past of the site.
Ampere Way tram stop. Opened in 1998. This is basically a tram stop on the old power station site. It was renamed ‘IKEA Ampere Way; under a sponsorship deal in 2006, to promote the stop's location near the store. By 2008, it had reverted to its former name. It is served by tram link 3 (Wimbledon-New Addington) and tram link 4 (Therpia Lane-Elmers End).
Chimneys. These 300 ft chimneys are now a landmark and known to many as the IKEA Towers. They were designed in the 1930s as part of the Croydon B power station. The plans for this power station, designed by Robert Atkinson and commissioned by the then-Croydon Borough Council, were halted with the outbreak of the Second World War. Construction continued in 1946 but to scaled back plans. In 1985 the six concrete chimneys of the old 19th Croydon A station were demolished it was decided that the chimneys of Croydon B would remain as a landmark. Pressure was put on the government to get rid of them in the early 90s as the whole area around them was regenerated. IKEA was initially unhappy by having them above their site but were then allowed to paint their colours on the old advertisement boards at the top. But their future has been the subject of speculation but proposed alterations were abandoned through local opposition.
Bathhouse Road
This is on the site of the old Beddington Sewage Works and named for a Roman bath house discovered on the site.
Beddington Trading Park. Industrial and trading units.
Superdrug. The company dates to 1964 as a toiletry retailing business. In 1979 after fifteen years of trading they acquired the eight acre site here for a distribution centre and head offices. Since then Superdrug has expanded to become a major force in toiletry and pharmaceutical retailing with international links and over 1000 stores.
Beddington Cross
This is a private road with industrial and trading units. It is in an area which was open fields until the time of the Great War. It was a path alongside a drain along which depots and industrial units were built.
Beddington Farm Road
The road seems have developed after the Second World War running from the Ministry of Works site at the top end to the sewage works to the south. Earlier there is no path except slightly to the east running down the western edge of Primrose Wood. Beddington Farm itself is over on the western side of Beddington Lane. When the Croydon power station was in operation the road passed through its area at the southern end, with the cooling towers on the west side.
Transport Repair Depot for the Ministry of Works. This was extant in the 1950s and was north of the Beddington Cross path with an entrance in Beddington Farm Road
Valley Point Industrial Estate. Speculative freehold industrial/warehouse scheme by Quintain. Now a trading area
DPD Parcel Delivery Company
Croydon Mail Centre. This is basically a mail sorting office.
Pioneers Industrial Park
CCF. CCF is basically a building insulation products distributor.
Kuehne Nagel. Depot for this ‘international logistics operator’.
Cambrian Chemical works. This was on the corner with Beddington Cross
Beddington Lane
Entrance to Beddington Trading Estate at Bathhouse Road
Beddington Sewage farm
The modern sewage works lies to the west of this square and is in the square to the west. The northern part of the older works is in the south of this square and the square to the south. Sewage disposal at Beddington Farmlands began in 1860 in the form of land irrigation and fertilisation and was leased to a variety of operators, the Wandle having been culverted. It was later taken over by the local authority Proper treatment plant was installed between 1902 and 1912 and in 1932 was extended to provide for the novel system of using the treated sewage as cooling water in a power station. Methane produced by the digestion of the sewage sludge was used to drive corporation vehicles. In 1966-69 the works were completely rebuilt. This has since closed and the site is now used for industrial units.
Brazil Close
The name might refer to the filming here of parts of Terry Gilliam's 1985 film Brazil
This is a small trading and light industrial area with mainly packaging manufacturers present.
Canterbury Road
Weights and Measures Office. 1930s – 1970s
Coomber Way
Roundabout with Blue Pillar which says “Beddington Industrial Park”
Dacre Road
Therapia Lane Tram Stop. This is a stop on the Croydon Tramlink. The stop is in the London Borough of Sutton close to the boundary with Croydon.
Daniell Way
This road in the middle of the trading estate area consists mainly of a massive car park for IKEA. It is on the site of Croydon Power Station. It is named for John Frederic Daniell 1790-1845 – the inventor of the Daniell cell
Endeavour Way
Trading and industrial units.
Brett Concrete. With on site silos and plant
Franklin Way
Benjamin Franklin is the USA the man who tapped electricity from a thundercloud. Although this road has an electrical name from the power station it is actually on the site of the hospital.
Peppermint Healthy Living Centre. Health Centre
Gurney Crescent
Waddon Marsh tram stop. This is a Tramlink stop close to the commercial areas of the Purley Way. There was previously a railway station about 100 metres north of this site called Waddon Marsh.
Kelvin Gardens
William Thomson 1st Baron Kelvin of Largs after whom the unit of thermodynamic temperature is named. Although this road has an electrical name from the power station it is actually on the site of the hospital.
Lathams Way
Travellers’ site.
Mitcham Road
Mitcham Road Baths and Wash-houses. These were opened in 1931. There were twenty slipper baths and twenty washing stalls.
Purley Way
This main road, A23, This road opened in 1925. It was designed as a bypass for Croydon and was formed from improvements to pre-existing local roads. In 1932 it became the first road in the United Kingdom to be lit with sodium lights.
20 Veeder-Root Limited Dickinson Works. Makers of counting machines
66 Croydon Foundry Ltd. This was established here in 1920. The company manufactured iron engineering castings, up to 6 tons in weight. It went into voluntary liquidation in December 1972.
72 Standard Steel Co. Structural steel and steel stockholders. Set up in Croydon in 1929
74 Metal Propellers Ltd. This was established by Henry Leitner and Dr Henry Watts, who had designed a hollow steel aircraft propeller and set up the Metal Airscrew Co Ltd in the Great War. It became a manufacturing company and moved to Purley Way in 1925. They also made stainless steel items for domestic and industrial uses; and eventually specialised in this. In 1960 they took over the Standard Steel Co, and closed in 1973.
National Loose Leaf. Works
Huffler and Smith, New Era Works. Pharmaceutical & Fine Chemicals.
Waddon Marsh Station. This opened 1930 and has been replaced by the Croydon Tramlink. It was opened by the Southern Railway as new housing and industries moved into this area. It opened when the line was electrified and a freight line installed. At first the island platform was built of wood, but was later replaced by concrete. It was equipped with a small timber waiting shelter, and public access was via a pathway and footbridge leading from Purley Way. T was originally named Waddon Marsh Halt, and renamed Waddon Marsh in 1969. Nothing of the original station remains. By 1997 the passing loop had gone, and all that remained was a modern shelter. There were no name boards facing the trains, although one looked out onto Purley Way. Abandoned sections of track lay beneath undergrowth. In 1998 it became part of Tramlink. All that remains of it is an access path still lined with streetlamps painted BR red.
A signal box stood at the west end, close to the footbridge, and doubled as a booking office until closure on 1982.
Power Station
Croydon A power station. This opened in 1896 by Croydon Corporation and sited near the gas works. The generating equipment at the station was replaced in 1924, when low pressure equipment of 21 megawatts (MW) and high pressure equipment of 29 MW was installed, giving the station a generating capacity of 50 MW. At the same time locomotive using an overhead wire electric system, was used for shunting coal it was later replaced by a steam locomotive, In 1970, Croydon A still used wooden cooling towers. It operated until 1973.[3]
Croydon B Power Station. After the Second World War, began on a much larger power station, which adjoined the railway line, north of Purley Way. It was constructed by Sir Robert McAlpine & Sons but never completed because of the Second World War. It was opened in the 1940s with a generating capacity of 198 MW, but in the 1960s, a 140 MW gas turbine was installed at for peak use, bringing the generating capacity up to 338 MW. It had an internal railway system. It was a large, red, and imposing building designed by Robert Atkinson. Steel-framed, faced with brick-work of high standard with deliberately dramatic interiors. Coal-handling equipment was concealed by a curtain wall on the side and the coal came from Betteshanger in Kent or by lorry having been shipped from Kingsnorth. It was decommissioned in 1984 and demolished.
IKEA is now on the site.
Railway Line
The line running though this area was the West Croydon to Wimbledon Line built by the Wimbledon and Croydon Railway and engineered by George Parker Bidder over part of the track bed of the Surrey Iron Railway. It opened in 1855 thus connecting the London and South Western Railway to the London Brighton and South Coast Railway – who later purchased it. It was electrified in 1930. It was shut down in 1997 and is the line of it is now part of the Croydon Tramlink
Sidings ran south from the Croydon-Wimbledon Line for about a mile to the Waddon Flour Mills. This was the Waddon Marsh New Sidings and probably built in the 1880s. By the 1950s this no longer served the mills but was accessing the Trojan Works and the Jablo works and possibly a large number of other works which lay alongside it – including the Science Museum Depository. By the 1960s a vast number of other sidings ran off this both to the north and the south in the main running to various parts of the power station
Sidings ran south from the Croydon-Wimbledon west bound line to a number of gravel pits and were later adapted for the British Portland Cement Works and are shown on pre Great War Maps. By the 1950s a line here also accessed the Transport Repair Depot.
Sidings rang north from the west bound line before the Great War. These evolved into a complex of tracks in the 1920s, one of which accessed a cable works to the north. By the 1950s lines also accessed a rubber works and a plant store and one line ran as far as Red House Road
Sidings for a brewery
Sidings to the Croydon Gas Works initially to the west but after 1920 there was another set to the east also later evolving into a complex of tracks. The main line ran alongside the gas works running southwards
Sidings rang northwards to works in Factory Road and possibly accessing the Corporation destructor. These had gone by the 1950s
Sidings after 1920 ran, north of the station, to the east to two separate metal works. By the 1950s these had expanded to access a Parcel Depot, Croydon Iron foundry and the Standard Steel Co.
Stirling Way
Trading Estate
Surrey Iron Railway
The Surrey Iron Railway was a horse-drawn plateway that linked Wandsworth and Croydon via Mitcham, all then in Surrey. It was established by Act of Parliament in 1801. It was a toll railway for goods. It was commercially successful only briefly, and closed in 1846. The Wimbledon and Croydon Railway ran along the path of its trackbed in the Waddon area and this has now been replaced by the Croydon Tramlink on more or less the same line.
Valley Retail Park
IKEA. The IKEA in Croydon is a branch of the multinational furniture store which opened in 1992, on the site of Croydon 'B' Power Station. It was revamped during 2006, to make it the largest IKEA in Britain and it is now the fifth biggest single employer in Croydon. It designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture and other items. It has been the world's largest furniture retailer since 2008
Waddon Marsh Way
This road has now vanished under Purley Way and ensuing works,
Brickfields. They were already in use here by the mid-18th and remained in the -19th, but were closed by 1870.
Waddon Hospital. In 1893 the Croydon Corporation decided to build an isolation hospital and a plot of land was purchased at Waddon. Temporary hutted wards were built in 1894 for the isolation and treatment of infectious disease patients. The Croydon Borough Hospital for Infectious Diseases opened in 1886 and consisted of pavilion blocks containing the wards. It was extended in 1911 with two isolation pavilions and a Nurses' Home and an operating theatre was installed in 1930.In 1948 under the NHS It was renamed the Waddon Hospital. In 1954 the number of fever and TB cases had declined and many wards were treating the elderly. The Hospital was very inaccessible reached by a long private road from Purley Way with no public transport available. By 1976 it had ceased to deal with infectious disease patients.and al closed in 1984. Nothing remains of the Hospital and its site is now part of Valley Park
Sources
Anderson. Parish of Croydon
Croydon, the Story of a Hundred Years
Disused Stations. Web site
Gent. Croydon Past
GLIAS Newsletter
Grace’s Guide. Web site
London Borough of Croydon 1969
London Borough of Croydon. Web site
London Borough of Sutton. Web site
London Government. Web site
London Railway Record.
Lost Hospitals of London. Web site
Museum of Croydon. Web site
SABRE. Web site
Superdrug. Web site
Stewart. Croydon History in Field and Street Name
Wikipedia as appropriate
Ampere Way
This is a spine road leading from Purley Way up into the IKEA store, or beyond. It follows the tram line and hence it follows the line of the preceding railway line.
Named for Andre Marie Ampere born 1775 at Lyon, France, after whom the unit of electrical current is named, and reflecting the electrical past of the site.
Ampere Way tram stop. Opened in 1998. This is basically a tram stop on the old power station site. It was renamed ‘IKEA Ampere Way; under a sponsorship deal in 2006, to promote the stop's location near the store. By 2008, it had reverted to its former name. It is served by tram link 3 (Wimbledon-New Addington) and tram link 4 (Therpia Lane-Elmers End).
Chimneys. These 300 ft chimneys are now a landmark and known to many as the IKEA Towers. They were designed in the 1930s as part of the Croydon B power station. The plans for this power station, designed by Robert Atkinson and commissioned by the then-Croydon Borough Council, were halted with the outbreak of the Second World War. Construction continued in 1946 but to scaled back plans. In 1985 the six concrete chimneys of the old 19th Croydon A station were demolished it was decided that the chimneys of Croydon B would remain as a landmark. Pressure was put on the government to get rid of them in the early 90s as the whole area around them was regenerated. IKEA was initially unhappy by having them above their site but were then allowed to paint their colours on the old advertisement boards at the top. But their future has been the subject of speculation but proposed alterations were abandoned through local opposition.
Bathhouse Road
This is on the site of the old Beddington Sewage Works and named for a Roman bath house discovered on the site.
Beddington Trading Park. Industrial and trading units.
Superdrug. The company dates to 1964 as a toiletry retailing business. In 1979 after fifteen years of trading they acquired the eight acre site here for a distribution centre and head offices. Since then Superdrug has expanded to become a major force in toiletry and pharmaceutical retailing with international links and over 1000 stores.
Beddington Cross
This is a private road with industrial and trading units. It is in an area which was open fields until the time of the Great War. It was a path alongside a drain along which depots and industrial units were built.
Beddington Farm Road
The road seems have developed after the Second World War running from the Ministry of Works site at the top end to the sewage works to the south. Earlier there is no path except slightly to the east running down the western edge of Primrose Wood. Beddington Farm itself is over on the western side of Beddington Lane. When the Croydon power station was in operation the road passed through its area at the southern end, with the cooling towers on the west side.
Transport Repair Depot for the Ministry of Works. This was extant in the 1950s and was north of the Beddington Cross path with an entrance in Beddington Farm Road
Valley Point Industrial Estate. Speculative freehold industrial/warehouse scheme by Quintain. Now a trading area
DPD Parcel Delivery Company
Croydon Mail Centre. This is basically a mail sorting office.
Pioneers Industrial Park
CCF. CCF is basically a building insulation products distributor.
Kuehne Nagel. Depot for this ‘international logistics operator’.
Cambrian Chemical works. This was on the corner with Beddington Cross
Beddington Lane
Entrance to Beddington Trading Estate at Bathhouse Road
Beddington Sewage farm
The modern sewage works lies to the west of this square and is in the square to the west. The northern part of the older works is in the south of this square and the square to the south. Sewage disposal at Beddington Farmlands began in 1860 in the form of land irrigation and fertilisation and was leased to a variety of operators, the Wandle having been culverted. It was later taken over by the local authority Proper treatment plant was installed between 1902 and 1912 and in 1932 was extended to provide for the novel system of using the treated sewage as cooling water in a power station. Methane produced by the digestion of the sewage sludge was used to drive corporation vehicles. In 1966-69 the works were completely rebuilt. This has since closed and the site is now used for industrial units.
Brazil Close
The name might refer to the filming here of parts of Terry Gilliam's 1985 film Brazil
This is a small trading and light industrial area with mainly packaging manufacturers present.
Canterbury Road
Weights and Measures Office. 1930s – 1970s
Coomber Way
Roundabout with Blue Pillar which says “Beddington Industrial Park”
Dacre Road
Therapia Lane Tram Stop. This is a stop on the Croydon Tramlink. The stop is in the London Borough of Sutton close to the boundary with Croydon.
Daniell Way
This road in the middle of the trading estate area consists mainly of a massive car park for IKEA. It is on the site of Croydon Power Station. It is named for John Frederic Daniell 1790-1845 – the inventor of the Daniell cell
Endeavour Way
Trading and industrial units.
Brett Concrete. With on site silos and plant
Franklin Way
Benjamin Franklin is the USA the man who tapped electricity from a thundercloud. Although this road has an electrical name from the power station it is actually on the site of the hospital.
Peppermint Healthy Living Centre. Health Centre
Gurney Crescent
Waddon Marsh tram stop. This is a Tramlink stop close to the commercial areas of the Purley Way. There was previously a railway station about 100 metres north of this site called Waddon Marsh.
Kelvin Gardens
William Thomson 1st Baron Kelvin of Largs after whom the unit of thermodynamic temperature is named. Although this road has an electrical name from the power station it is actually on the site of the hospital.
Lathams Way
Travellers’ site.
Mitcham Road
Mitcham Road Baths and Wash-houses. These were opened in 1931. There were twenty slipper baths and twenty washing stalls.
Purley Way
This main road, A23, This road opened in 1925. It was designed as a bypass for Croydon and was formed from improvements to pre-existing local roads. In 1932 it became the first road in the United Kingdom to be lit with sodium lights.
20 Veeder-Root Limited Dickinson Works. Makers of counting machines
66 Croydon Foundry Ltd. This was established here in 1920. The company manufactured iron engineering castings, up to 6 tons in weight. It went into voluntary liquidation in December 1972.
72 Standard Steel Co. Structural steel and steel stockholders. Set up in Croydon in 1929
74 Metal Propellers Ltd. This was established by Henry Leitner and Dr Henry Watts, who had designed a hollow steel aircraft propeller and set up the Metal Airscrew Co Ltd in the Great War. It became a manufacturing company and moved to Purley Way in 1925. They also made stainless steel items for domestic and industrial uses; and eventually specialised in this. In 1960 they took over the Standard Steel Co, and closed in 1973.
National Loose Leaf. Works
Huffler and Smith, New Era Works. Pharmaceutical & Fine Chemicals.
Waddon Marsh Station. This opened 1930 and has been replaced by the Croydon Tramlink. It was opened by the Southern Railway as new housing and industries moved into this area. It opened when the line was electrified and a freight line installed. At first the island platform was built of wood, but was later replaced by concrete. It was equipped with a small timber waiting shelter, and public access was via a pathway and footbridge leading from Purley Way. T was originally named Waddon Marsh Halt, and renamed Waddon Marsh in 1969. Nothing of the original station remains. By 1997 the passing loop had gone, and all that remained was a modern shelter. There were no name boards facing the trains, although one looked out onto Purley Way. Abandoned sections of track lay beneath undergrowth. In 1998 it became part of Tramlink. All that remains of it is an access path still lined with streetlamps painted BR red.
A signal box stood at the west end, close to the footbridge, and doubled as a booking office until closure on 1982.
Power Station
Croydon A power station. This opened in 1896 by Croydon Corporation and sited near the gas works. The generating equipment at the station was replaced in 1924, when low pressure equipment of 21 megawatts (MW) and high pressure equipment of 29 MW was installed, giving the station a generating capacity of 50 MW. At the same time locomotive using an overhead wire electric system, was used for shunting coal it was later replaced by a steam locomotive, In 1970, Croydon A still used wooden cooling towers. It operated until 1973.[3]
Croydon B Power Station. After the Second World War, began on a much larger power station, which adjoined the railway line, north of Purley Way. It was constructed by Sir Robert McAlpine & Sons but never completed because of the Second World War. It was opened in the 1940s with a generating capacity of 198 MW, but in the 1960s, a 140 MW gas turbine was installed at for peak use, bringing the generating capacity up to 338 MW. It had an internal railway system. It was a large, red, and imposing building designed by Robert Atkinson. Steel-framed, faced with brick-work of high standard with deliberately dramatic interiors. Coal-handling equipment was concealed by a curtain wall on the side and the coal came from Betteshanger in Kent or by lorry having been shipped from Kingsnorth. It was decommissioned in 1984 and demolished.
IKEA is now on the site.
Railway Line
The line running though this area was the West Croydon to Wimbledon Line built by the Wimbledon and Croydon Railway and engineered by George Parker Bidder over part of the track bed of the Surrey Iron Railway. It opened in 1855 thus connecting the London and South Western Railway to the London Brighton and South Coast Railway – who later purchased it. It was electrified in 1930. It was shut down in 1997 and is the line of it is now part of the Croydon Tramlink
Sidings ran south from the Croydon-Wimbledon Line for about a mile to the Waddon Flour Mills. This was the Waddon Marsh New Sidings and probably built in the 1880s. By the 1950s this no longer served the mills but was accessing the Trojan Works and the Jablo works and possibly a large number of other works which lay alongside it – including the Science Museum Depository. By the 1960s a vast number of other sidings ran off this both to the north and the south in the main running to various parts of the power station
Sidings ran south from the Croydon-Wimbledon west bound line to a number of gravel pits and were later adapted for the British Portland Cement Works and are shown on pre Great War Maps. By the 1950s a line here also accessed the Transport Repair Depot.
Sidings rang north from the west bound line before the Great War. These evolved into a complex of tracks in the 1920s, one of which accessed a cable works to the north. By the 1950s lines also accessed a rubber works and a plant store and one line ran as far as Red House Road
Sidings for a brewery
Sidings to the Croydon Gas Works initially to the west but after 1920 there was another set to the east also later evolving into a complex of tracks. The main line ran alongside the gas works running southwards
Sidings rang northwards to works in Factory Road and possibly accessing the Corporation destructor. These had gone by the 1950s
Sidings after 1920 ran, north of the station, to the east to two separate metal works. By the 1950s these had expanded to access a Parcel Depot, Croydon Iron foundry and the Standard Steel Co.
Stirling Way
Trading Estate
Surrey Iron Railway
The Surrey Iron Railway was a horse-drawn plateway that linked Wandsworth and Croydon via Mitcham, all then in Surrey. It was established by Act of Parliament in 1801. It was a toll railway for goods. It was commercially successful only briefly, and closed in 1846. The Wimbledon and Croydon Railway ran along the path of its trackbed in the Waddon area and this has now been replaced by the Croydon Tramlink on more or less the same line.
Valley Retail Park
IKEA. The IKEA in Croydon is a branch of the multinational furniture store which opened in 1992, on the site of Croydon 'B' Power Station. It was revamped during 2006, to make it the largest IKEA in Britain and it is now the fifth biggest single employer in Croydon. It designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture and other items. It has been the world's largest furniture retailer since 2008
Waddon Marsh Way
This road has now vanished under Purley Way and ensuing works,
Brickfields. They were already in use here by the mid-18th and remained in the -19th, but were closed by 1870.
Waddon Hospital. In 1893 the Croydon Corporation decided to build an isolation hospital and a plot of land was purchased at Waddon. Temporary hutted wards were built in 1894 for the isolation and treatment of infectious disease patients. The Croydon Borough Hospital for Infectious Diseases opened in 1886 and consisted of pavilion blocks containing the wards. It was extended in 1911 with two isolation pavilions and a Nurses' Home and an operating theatre was installed in 1930.In 1948 under the NHS It was renamed the Waddon Hospital. In 1954 the number of fever and TB cases had declined and many wards were treating the elderly. The Hospital was very inaccessible reached by a long private road from Purley Way with no public transport available. By 1976 it had ceased to deal with infectious disease patients.and al closed in 1984. Nothing remains of the Hospital and its site is now part of Valley Park
Sources
Anderson. Parish of Croydon
Croydon, the Story of a Hundred Years
Disused Stations. Web site
Gent. Croydon Past
GLIAS Newsletter
Grace’s Guide. Web site
London Borough of Croydon 1969
London Borough of Croydon. Web site
London Borough of Sutton. Web site
London Government. Web site
London Railway Record.
Lost Hospitals of London. Web site
Museum of Croydon. Web site
SABRE. Web site
Superdrug. Web site
Stewart. Croydon History in Field and Street Name
Wikipedia as appropriate
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