The Unexpected Beauty of Croydon

Today I visited Electric House, an intricately designed Grade II-listed building which originally housed the County Borough of Croydon electricity showrooms. Electric House sign caught by the sun, August 2017 The building has recently been renovated, however rather than becoming apartments like so many other Croydon buildings, it is now a campus of London South Bank University. The courses available are in the medical fields of adult nursing, mental health nursing and chiropractic, plus business. The first students began their courses in 2021 and next week a larger cohort will join the campus. It's great that central Croydon is home to this campus providing much-needed nurses to our NHS. The nursing students undertake placements all over London, plus south of Croydon down to the Gatwick area.   Main entrance It's difficult to find a lot of information or photos of electricity showrooms. I remember visiting Amberley Museum in West Sussex many years ago and seeing a sort of elec

On the Surrey National Golf Course in Caterham, a little south of Croydon, there is an unusual feature: the somewhat overgrown burial ground from St Lawrence's Hospital. While Caterham-on-the-Hill is mostly housing now, until the 1990s it was home to military barracks and a large mental hospital, which was formerly an asylum. The patients were those which we would today consider to have learning disabilities.  I had read that the burial ground had been located on the golf course but I wasn't sure how accessible it would be. I took a 466 bus to the Tesco at Caterham-on-the-Hill and walked through a residential estate for about 10 minutes until I reached the end of Drake Avenue, where it meets Fairbourne Lane. There I found the entrance to the public bridleway which crosses the golf course. After walking along a track with high hedges both sides, I found a gate on my right, with a sign on it informing me it was St Lawrence's Burial Ground, inviting me to "enjoy the peace