The Unexpected Beauty of Croydon

Great crested grebes are one of my favourite birds and I want to tell you about them. They can be found in Croydon, but generally only at South Norwood Lake and sometimes at South Norwood Country Park. Their survival to the present day is partly down to the efforts of a group of Croydon women. 1. The Great Crested Grebe was an inspiration for the establishment of the RSPB The Fur, Fin and Feather Folk was founded in 1889 in Croydon, meeting at the home of Eliza Phillips, on Morland Road. In 1891, they merged with the Plumage League, based in Didsbury, Manchester. Both groups had been set up to try to prevent the extinction of birds due to hunting for their feathers for women's hats. One of the species that was suffering was the great crested grebe, as they have beautiful head crests. The efforts of the group were successful in getting plume hunting banned and great crested grebes were saved from extinction, which I am very grateful for. 2. They are excellent underwater swimmers but

I've been meaning to start a series of blog posts about places where you can walk across the boundaries of Croydon through or between green spaces. As I collect lists of bird species for the Croydon RSPB, it is important to me to know where the borough boundaries are, and being something of a geography nerd I already do know a lot of them and there are quite a few pretty places on the boundaries.  When I was a young child, I lived in Lambeth, not far from Streatham Common. I have memories of crisp winter walks around Christmas and picking blackberries in the summer holidays.  These days I live in Croydon, but the 468 bus connects me with familiar places from my childhood. If you get off at the stop Biggin Hill (not to be confused with the airport in Kent), you can cross the road and take a look at Beulah Hill Pond. It's quite small and it's got a metal fence around it but I saw four mallards and two moorhens there. It was apparently used historically for horses and cattle t

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