Colourful Complex Croydon… London

Croydon is just over nine miles south of Charing Cross, London. Saffron was produced locally in Roman times in the area. It was referred  to in the Domesday book as a hamlet of 365 people . Over recent decades, Croydon had tried to achieve city status but can’t as it's in the borough of London.

My first experience of Croydon was thirty plus years ago when we opened a "mid market “  shirt shop called "Shirt Factor" in the then quite prestigious Whitgift Shopping Centre. It opened onto the main up end pedestrian high street. The mall was one of the greatest malls in greater London till 2008.  Reminds me a bit of Liberty Plaza and Majestic City  in Sri  Lanka . Today they are full of shops selling same electrical items etc. In Croydon there are more empty shops  than occupied. 

Charity  shops take some space alongside niche retailers.  This is the fate of city centers and most shopping malls and traditions high street in England. In the last two decades I’ve visited  Croydon about thirty-six times as Jezzabel's brother and family live there. Chain stores eg British Home Stores , who I worked for ten years,  and big  departmental stores have come and gone over the years.

Out of town shopping centres have grown and now the level of home delivery from fruit,furniture, food and fashion means many people don’t visit high streets or malls at all. I met my 14 year old nephew last week from the UK, he shops online for upper end used branded clothes, reselling them when he gets bored with them, or more so in his case grows out of them. He is already six foot tall.

A big factor for the success of Croydon is the commuting time to London and that the suburb of Croydon has a population of about four hundred thousand. Plus many commuters and people who take lodgings Monday to Friday. There are over 150 hotels in Croydon plus lower level temporary accommodation establishments .

Like any place, if you take the trouble to walk about you can find the historic gems,the old alms housing, churches. Croydon Minster has history going back to 809 but the current church is at least the fourth on the site.  The smallish cemetery is interesting until I find some old tents with dubious people philamungering there in the cemetery.  Walking into town on my many visits I pass the old part of the  town hall and doff my hat at the Statue of Queen Victoria. The newly renovated  Fairfield Hall theater has seen bands like the Beatles, The Monkeys to BB King play over the decades it has been open.This visit we are doing  the Rocky Horror Show.There are lots of suburbia and old terraced streets. An array of Ethnic groups makes Croydon quite cosmopolitan and colourful. One of Jezzabel's Sri Lankan relatives stayed in the Croydon YMCA when he was young and fell asleep, dropped a cigarette , left the building and the place burnt down.

Suburbs of Victorian properties have in many cases gone through a new development process after WW2 bombings . This  created space for apartment blocks and other development. You don’t feel as though you are in an old city . There are  multiple restaurant choices. Some of my regulars are Spanish tapas, Galicia, Bagatti and Little Bay,  Mediterranean. We do a Coombe park visit annually, lovely gardens, lots of history and village style coffee shop. Croydon and our family are always the start and end of our annual European trip.