The Unexpected Beauty of Croydon

I used to work near the Beddington Farmlands site and it wasn't the most popular neighbour among my colleagues but I found it fascinating. I got some glimpses of wildlife through the fencing - families of foxes and birds including little egrets, shovelers and teal (ducks).  Fox at the Beddington Lane side of the Farmlands, May 2012 From the Hackbridge end, with my camera at full zoom I was able to spot wetland birds like shoveler ducks and lapwings. Lapwings and shovelers, March 2014 Although technically in the borough of Sutton, Beddington Farmlands has been an important site for Croydon for over 160 years. The sewage works here originated as a sewage processing site for the Croydon Board of Health and it still plays a big part in our sewage and waste disposal services. It's also close to Croydon - there are views of the town centre and Purley Way area from the new bird hides installed a couple of years ago. Ikea towers and new buildings in Croydon town centre, Nov 2020 The va...

There are three meadows in the Woodside, South Norwood and Selhurst area, approximately north east of Croydon town centre. Two of them only became public parks in the 1990s, meaning they don't appear in the book Croydon's Parks: An Illustrated History , which was published in 1988.  Brickfields Meadow  Brickfields Meadow lake, Jan 2021 The peace and stillness of the grassy meadow, small woodland and deep lake at Brickfields are quite a contrast to the site's industrial past. As the name suggests, it was previously a brickworks. The first brickworks on the site started in 1810, where Thomas Becket School now stands, but closed in 1856. Horris Parks opened a brickworks on what is now the meadow in the 1880s and it was later bought by Edward Handley, becoming Handleys Brickworks. The brickworks eventually closed in 1974. Housing was built on part of the site while the rest was opened as public green space.  Adult & juvenile moorhens, Brickfields, Oct 2020 Interestingly, ...

I've been slipping, sliding and squelching my way through Croydon's green spaces recently. Every time I come home, I bring souvenirs with me, in the form of mud. My trouser legs look like Jackson Pollock has had a go at them with some brown paint.  This time of year, there's water everywhere and many of our parks are flooded. I've seen people concerned about this, particularly as parks are especially important at the moment. However, their tendency to flood is a key reason why some of these sites remain public land.  Ashburton Park, Jan 2021 Croydon's green spaces used to have more ponds and lakes than they currently do.  The current "flooding" in Ashburton Park pretty much exactly matches the location of the lake on this map from 1898 ( available on the National Library of Scotland website here ).  Wandle Park was the site of Croydon's first sewage treatment works, however this was short-lived, being replaced by an abbatoir. Despite this insalubrious ...

What fairytales could you imagine taking place in Croydon? I think many people would be stumped by this question. Perhaps the Pied Piper of Hamelin or The Ugly Duckling at Waddon Ponds?  There are two particular sites in Croydon which evoke fairytale stories of princesses for me, and both were built in the 19th century for the purposes of water supply.  Pumping Station, Feb 2020 Following the Public Health Act of 1848, which established local boards of health to manage issues including water and sanitation, Croydon was one of the first areas to set up a Local Board of Health. This article from the Museum of Croydon notes that Croydon had very poor sanitation at this point and suffered deadly outbreaks of cholera and other waterborne diseases. A reservoir was built at Park Hill in 1851, filled by a pumping station just off Surrey Street.  Pumping station, Exchange Square, Aug 2017 The pumping station is said to have reused materials originally used in the West Croydon eng...