South Norwood from the air

It is always fun to try and spot recognisable landmarks as you fly back into London, but for the first time that I can recall I was thrilled to be able to spot my hometown of South Norwood from the air as I flew back from Montreal.

South Norwood from the air

The distinctive shape of the Selhurst Train and Rolling Stock Maintenance Depot was the giveaway and soon enough I was able to see Selhurst Park (with Eagles just about visible on the stands), Tennison Road Bridge, South Norwood Recreation Ground and Norwood Junction station. I lost track of the flight for a bit after this, until we got a good view over Brockwell Park and Twickenham Stadium before landing at Heathrow.

Summer in South Norwood

Our local recreation ground is looking drier and dustier than I can recall on any past summer with barely any drop of rain over the past month or so. The forecasters have occasionally teased the return of rain, but so far it has disappeared as the appointed hour arrives. I’m sure this is a scene being repeated across the UK, but even still, it is shocking to see the effect that climate change is having at a local level.

Summer in South Norwood

The photo above was taken a week ago, so things are quite a bit worse now. There is no hosepipe ban here yet, but Thames Water are planning to introduce one soon enough. In the meantime, a torrent of water from a leak from their pipes continue to run the length of my road, as it has for the past three weeks, despite an attempt at a fix. Bring on the rain, but no flash floods please!

Platinum Jubilee

The Queen hits the remarkable milestone of 70 years on the throne today. I’ve never lived under a different monarch, which is something I have in common with most of the British population (86% according to Diamond Geezer’s handy round up of the platinum jubilee statistics).

I wouldn’t say that I have made a great effort to celebrate past jubilees, with the exception of the silver jubilee. I was only four years at the time that the Queen reached her silver jubilee in 1977, but still have lingering memories of the celebrations that year which culminated in a series of events around the Queen’s official birthday in June.

School project for the Silver Jubilee

It was my first year of primary school and every child at Heavers Farm School was asked to make a book to commemorate the occasion. I still have mine to this day, though it’s looking a little bit the worse for wear now. My artistic talents at that age were quite limited, so my parents put together a beautiful foil wrapped scrapbook edged with blue, white and red ribbon.

My contribution was to help stick in the pictures and write the captions – though I think write might be over-stating my scrawl. I’m not convinced that I knew the meaning of the word “homage” at that age either, so think it’s fair to say that I had help with that element! I remember looking around the hall at my primary school and seeing all the tables laid out with an incredible spread of silver jubilee scrapbooks.

Captions were my contribution

My scrapbook didn’t win any of the prizes, but it’s fascinating to look back on now. It feels like something completely in the tradition of Blue Peter with its re-use of kitchen foil, paper doilies and some ribbon. Probably a bit of sticky-backed plastic too. Lots of photographs of a young looking royal family, plus black and white pictures from the coronation. One double-spread in the scrapbook picks out the busy year that the Queen enjoyed on her jubilee, with an extensive royal tour of the UK followed by a tour of commonwealth nations.

In our street in South Norwood a handful of residents, including my mother, set about organising an outdoor party – going up and down the street to find out who would be interested. Unfortunately, the silver jubilee celebrations occurred in one of the coldest and wettest Junes on record. The weather might have conspired against the outdoor party, but luckily the hall at South Norwood Primary School had been hired as a back up. In the evening we enjoyed another silver jubilee event at the Dr Barnado’s home in Tennison Road, long since demolished, where a big bonfire was lit in honour of the Queen.

The appalling weather seems to be a jubilee theme, if the conditions seen on the diamond jubilee river pageant in 2012 were anything to go by. I hope that anyone organising street parties this year has better luck.

The BBC reported that 31% of the British public have seen or met the Queen. I can’t say that I have any strong memories of this, but the first time I saw the Queen would have been six years later, when she came to open the Queen’s Gardens in Croydon on 21st June 1983. It was a school day but I was allowed to go join my cub troop and line the street to welcome the Queen. I suspect it was something of an anticlimax when she drove past but the long wait sitting on the kerb must have seared itself into my brain as I can still point out the spot I stood in Fell Road to this day!

Second shot

The announcement that second shots were being brought forward to 8 weeks from 12 weeks was beautifully timed. I just passed the eight week mark a few days back so was able to cancel my existing appointment and re-book for this morning, just 13 hours after the official announcement.

The process is slightly unnerving though, requiring you to cancel your existing appointment without knowing how much availability there is in the system. As it turned out, the answer was plenty. Even better, my re-booked appointment was just a twenty minute walk away from home at Selhurst Park stadium. A marked improvement on my original booking at a vaccination centre 9 miles away.

Covid 19 Vaccination Centre at Selhurst Park

I thought the Vaccination Centre at Selhurst Park was incredibly well-run on my visit in April, marveling at being in-and-out within 15 minutes for the first shot. I didn’t expect this to be bettered, but this time it was just under 10 minutes from start to finish! I was back home and logging in to work at 9am, ready for a day staring at my screen.

The unsurprising reveal of the delay to full unlocking is an unfortunate late hurdle, but I’m glad that they given the vaccination programme a chance to make more progress with the Delta variant on the loose. More than 30 million people in the UK have now been vaccinated with a second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and it does feel like we’re getting closer to the end of this nightmare.

One of the new Covid-19 and Shop Local signs to have appeared on local pavements

Apart from anything else, it was nice to get out for a walk. Too often my days are far too sedentary, at least compared to the pre-covid era. Today, I was struck by the addition of new Covid-19/Shop local stickers to the pavements around South Norwood and matching banners flying from the streetlamps. It seems a little late for the Covid-19 messaging but it never hurts to be reminded of the need to shop locally if we want to keep these places going.

I probably looked quite odd taking a few photos but I figure that one day all the signs, screens and posters about Covid-19 will seem like a distant memory. I think I am OK with that!

Heavers Meadow

A walk through Heavers Meadow last weekend proved to be an eyeopener. Heavers Meadow is a green space I am very familiar with, having been one of my childhood playgrounds, but it is almost unrecognisable now from what I grew up with.

The meadow follows the curve of the Norwood Fork, between Norwood Junction and Selhurst, offering views into Selhurst railway depot. Over the past thirty years it has grown like mad and it is hard to believe that it was ever anything but a wetland nature reserve when you take a wander through. However, this is very much a new development. If you were to stand here just over 50 years ago you would see allotments in all directions.

The Heavers Meadow site can be seen in this map from 1938-1948, Published: 1950. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland.

The allotments occupied around 30 acres at their peak but over time this has been eaten away on all sides. The largest bite came with the construction of Heavers Farm Primary School, which opened on 18 April 1972, and the creation of a flood plain at Heavers Meadow. Today’s well laid out allotment plots take up just 10 acres of the space originally occupied by allotments.

You can see the difference in this side-by-side view of the site comparing the view from the Ordnance Survey National Grid maps with a satellite image from the present. This shows the site as it stood after being surveyed in 1953 (also available through the wonderful National Library of Scotland Map Images website as an individual map).

When my family moved into the neighbourhood in 1970 the space known as Heavers Meadow was in its dying throes as allotments. It was largely abandoned but some local residents, including my family, still dug out unofficial plots and cultivated crops until they were able to ‘move inside’ to the allotment compound that you can see today (Selhurst and South Norwood Allotments).

I have the dimmest memory of the meadow being a fascinating space to explore in the 1970s with the surviving traces from the abandoned plots but it was an unsatisfactory space to plant crops with no protection from pilfering. My father remembers growing cauliflowers only to find them all disappear the day before he planned to pick them.

It was not only the plots that remained on the ground. There was a hut made out of railway sleepers, built by a platelayer/ganger from the railways, who used to cut the grass on the meadow using a scythe (another bit of railway salvage – scythes were used to cut the grass on railway embankments).

Heavers Meadow, looking towards Selhurst depot, in 1990

The same spot (roughly) in 2021

Somewhere around the mid 70s the meadow was closed off with a temporary wooden fence, along the length of the path between South Norwood and Selhurst, to discourage anyone from using the abandoned allotments. The meadow was cleared and a section excavated as a flood relief measure.

The road outside Selhurst Station and under the railway bridge used to flood badly during any intense rainfall with the drains unable to cope with the deluge. Now, in theory, when the Norbury Brook overflows the water should flood the pond in the meadow instead. I can recall more than one occasion where the pond wasn’t enough, but it has certainly reduced the number of floodings.

Much of the earth dug out of the meadow was dumped at the Tennison Road end of the meadow and grassed over. It was known to the local kids as ‘The Mound’ and became an incredible playground. It probably didn’t last all that long, but was a feature in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I can still remember getting into trouble when a grass fire took hold and singed the grass of the meadow and the mound – after the excitement of a visit from the Fire Brigade we were keen to reclaim the mound, little considering any possibility that the fire could re-ignite.

The mound was surprisingly high and not all that popular with the residents of the houses it backed onto, offering a view straight into their upstairs rooms. A narrow path ran around the back of the mound and in the summer you could find plenty of blackberries to pick. It all seemed quite idyllic through my pre-teen eyes!

Heavers Meadow, looking towards Norwood Loco, in 1990

The same view (roughly) in 2021

Trees were planted in the meadow in the late 80s/early 90s and have grown astonishingly since then, as these before and after shots illustrate. It is hard to imagine that allotments ever existed here. I have tried to match the shots from 1990 with the view today but it’s pretty hard to be exact when the backdrop, meadow and path have all changed (at this time the tarmac path from South Norwood to Selhurst ran on the opposite side of the meadow to the path you see today, hugging the fence line of the school/allotment, leading to two of the three gates in to the allotments).

Much has changed around the boundaries of the meadow too. The original Heavers Farm School complex was demolished and re-built in 1996. The school caretaker’s house, adjacent to the gate into the meadow, was demolished and three houses built on the same plot. The extensive and well tended playing fields that surrounded the old school have almost entirely been been swallowed up by buildings.

The scrapyard to the east of the meadow (originally the coal depot) was developed into residential housing circa 2013, with connections cut through the railway wall to integrate the meadow. The landscape design plans attached to the planning application (11/02644/P) in 2011 talk about creating a new permeability to the boundary of the meadow, increasing public access and interest. They also refer to the knock on effect of passive monitoring of the space, something they talked up in their consultations with the community.

The housing development was something of a relief to local residents as there had been a proposal to intensify industrial usage on the site and bring in a car crusher, prompting a local campaign and press coverage in the Croydon Advertiser. The only plus to the scrapyard had been its occasional use by ‘The Bill’ for filming, bringing Sun Hill’s finest to our doorsteps.

1990 v 2021 from the old path

1990 v 2021 before the current path was laid

The floodlight tower that overlooked the meadow was cut down section by section in 2002 and lifted away by crane. Many of the depot buildings were replaced around the turn of the century and the facilities modernised to accommodate the multiple units of today. More security cameras have been installed across the railway depot and anti-climb measures installed atop the walls.

The effect of all the change is overwhelmingly positive. Today, Heavers Meadow is a much loved green space in the local area and I think you would have been pushed to find folk who would have said that thirty years ago.

Plenty of bloggers have visited the meadow. Diamond Geezer followed the path of the Norbury Brook through here in 2017; Inside Croydon shared a three park walk taking in Heavers Meadow in 2018; and Train Walks London has described a walk from Sydenham to West Croydon that takes in Heavers Meadow and plenty of other local landmarks.

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A shot of hope

My weekend walk in my local neighbourhood yesterday took me to Selhurst Park, home to premiership football club, Crystal Palace. I’ve been to the stadium a few times, but stepping through the doors of the Glaziers Lounge you would have been hard pressed to remember where you were. The whole place has been adapted to become a NHS vaccination centre and really looks the part. It’s terrific to see the club playing such an active part in the community.

The whole operation was superbly run and incredibly efficient. Five staging posts take you through the checks of your booking number, personal details and medical background with an opportunity to ask any lingering questions. A couple of medical professionals talked patients through the common side effects that you might expect and the signs of the rare clotting syndrome that should have you dialing 111 for help.

Signpost in South Norwood

I was in and out in about 15 minutes after getting my first shot of the Astra Zeneca vaccine. Afterwards, a short walk brought me back to my folks for a pleasant mid-morning coffee followed by a walk through Heavers Meadow. I felt completely fine and thought I might have gotten lucky with the side effects but by early evening I was battling aches, chills and nausea, which no amount of jumpers or cranking up of the heating could fix.

No doubt the side effects of the vaccine are nothing compared to catching COVID-19 and I am very grateful for the incredible work that has brought us to this point. After a long and sleepless night I feel like I’m back up and running this morning, but may need a nap or two and some strong coffee to get me through the day!

It’s amazing the optimism that those little vials of vaccine hold. Here’s to the roll out continuing apace and helping to bring us ever closer to something resembling normality.

Thornton Heath and Grangewood Park

One of the revelations of staying local has been how easily I have overlooked places on my doorstep, sometimes quite unfathomably. A good example is Grangewood Park, which is no more than twenty minutes walk from my childhood home, but which I have never visited before. Today’s walk took me on a long overdue visit to Thornton Heath, up through the woodlands of Grangewood Park and back down to the heart of South Norwood.

Mosaic by Maud Milton at Thornton Heath

There have been a few changes since I last visited Thornton Heath. In the 1980s I came to swim at the rather grand and atmospheric Victorian baths (1897) with the Scouts, possibly during the temporary closure of South Norwood baths in 1984. The baths have long since demolished and replaced by a much blander, if probably more suitable, leisure centre for the modern age.

Much later, I returned to make regular visits to the Job Centre in the High Street upon entering the job market at the post-recession peak of youth unemployment in 1993, when the unemployment rate stood at 18.3%. Many months of struggling to get my foot on the career ladder eventually paid off, just as the advisers were suggesting I try a different career – working for the job centre.

Making my way down the High Street today I could see that the job centre was much as I remembered, though I hadn’t appreciated that it was a product of the New Elizabethan age with it’s distinctive architecture, a stylised sculpture of a winged woman cradling a child on the side of the building and a rather more obvious ER crest dated 1958. As a somewhat reluctant visitor in the 90s I was not likely to have looked up to admire any of this.

Mural at the junction of the High Street and Gillett Road

My main reason for taking a walk in this particular direction was to seek out some of the art from the recently established Thornton Heath Art Trail. The trail has seen the addition of some striking mosaics and murals to the area. I think my favourite would have to be the piece contributed by YOU&ME architecture which translates an old photograph of the A.F.Bundle furniture shop into a striking black and white mural. Other pieces celebrate the flora and fauna of Thornton Heath’s green spaces; instruct us all to never stop dreaming and remind us of the potential of the local community. It’s an enjoyable wander.

Midway through my walk I ducked into Thornton Heath railway station to admire the new mosaic by Maud Milton, installed in August 2020. The mosaic is a reinvention of the station roundel using tiny pieces of mosaic, many of which contain words chosen by locals including “Community”, “Selhurst Park”, “White Squirrel”, “Support NHS” and “CPFC”. The final result is absolutely stunning. I’ll have to seek out some of the other mosaics by Maud and Artyface that can be found across London when we get out of lockdown.

On my way back to South Norwood I headed uphill to Grangewood Park, a striking patch of oak woodland that turns out to be another remnant of the ancient Great North Wood.

The 28 acre park, on the Norwood Ridge, was originally known as Whitehorse Wood. The land was purchased by Croydon Council in 1900 along with a grand mansion that was used to billet Canadian troops during the Great War. Today, the foundations of the demolished mansion provide a striking setting for a flower garden (or cycle circuit on the evidence of my visit). It seemed like a well-used park.

Foundations of the mansion at Grangewood Park

Some 195 square metres of land around a later addition to the park, Heath Lodge, is currently under threat from Croydon Council which put out plans for a sell-off in December 2019, despite previous promises to protect green spaces in the borough. There have been no consultations with the local community groups. Local residents are calling on Croydon Council to scrap their plan and their petition has already got over 4,000 signatories.

I had a good wander, admiring a group of four green feral parakeets swooping noisily from treetop to treetop. Like many I wonder where these non-native birds originated from, with stories circulating that the ancestors of these green parakeets were escapees from the branch of Ealing Studios responsible for the filming of The African Queen. The truth is most likely to be a lot duller. The original parakeets probably just escaped from suburban aviaries. At one time there was an even more unusual sight in this park – a family of albino squirrels – as one of the murals on the High Street reminds us.

It was great to get out, explore the area and take in some uphill stretches for exercise. To be honest, I had quite forgotten just how vibrant Thornton Heath is, even under the constraints of the latest lockdown. I was glad of the spur to visit and banish some of the lingering memories from my reluctant visits in the 1990s.

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Audio revolution

The papers today have reported the death of Lou Ottens, the inventor of the audio cassette tape, one of the invisible heroes of the twentieth century. I took the existence of cassette tapes for granted growing up in the 1980s, a couple of decades after they were first introduced, and entirely overlooked just how big a leap that was in making music portable. Thank you to Mr Ottens and all the other unsung heroes that played their part in that development.

Cassette tapes from the 80s and 90s

I guess I must have been given a cassette recorder at the age of eight or somewhere thereabouts and as we didn’t have a video recorder we used to record TV our favourite programmes. My folks would record the audio of Doctor Who episodes while we were at Cub Scout meetings of an evening which ensured that we didn’t miss out – though trying to work out what was going on from the audio of Resurrection of the Daleks in 1984 was bloody difficult!

It was a while before I moved on from taping stuff to purchasing my first music cassette tape. The spark for that purchase came on the Ashburton High School fourth year Geography Field trip to Swanage in the Summer of 1987. We were travelling down to the Field Studies Centre in a Ford Transit minibus and one of the lads, possibly Paul Bristow, produced an album on cassette tape to play – Invisible Touch by Genesis. I thought it was simply astonishing and was swept away by the sound, especially the prog-rock numbers Domino and The Brazilian.

On my return home I headed to “Sounds Good” the long since vanished independent record shop on South Norwood High Street and picked up my own copy of Invisible Touch on tape. In my spring clear out I have discarded almost all the cassette tapes I bought after that but have kept that one. Pure nostalgia.

My old Toshiba Walkman

It was incredible to be able to take a few tapes on your travels armed with a walkman, a flimsy set of headphones and a fistful of batteries. I took a few albums on my travels over the channel in the mid 1990s and remember taking great pleasure listening to my walkman on a sunny day in the Tuileries Garden, watching the world go by. I think the infectious joy of this was best captured in Deutschland 83 in the scene where East German Martin Rauch is introduced to a walkman for the first time.

It is striking now to think how short lived the era of the cassette tape was, probably peaking with the walkman from the mid 1980s through to the mid 1990s. The tape cassette was supplanted by CDs in the late 1980s and then a succession of digital formats. Now no-one thinks anything of travelling with immediate access to thousands of songs with a quick tap of a screen, whereas back in the 1990s you had to think carefully which albums to take with you.

Mixtapes from the 80s and 90s

It was common in the 80s to create mixtapes and I happily made a few myself, with selections reflecting a wide spread of influences including Annie Nightingale’s much loved Sunday request show on Radio 1. In my lockdown chuck-out I have just come across a bag of those tapes from the late 80s and early 90s, many now trashed by mould, though the labels still give a hint of the wonders they contained. Some of the songs I recorded off the radio are classics, while others are less well known tracks from bands that never made it quite as big as they might. Some can be found on the streaming channels of today, but by no means all. Some of my choices baffle me today!

Among the mixtapes are songs I haven’t heard in years, including Dream Academy – Life In A Northern Town (15, 1985); Laurie Anderson – Let X=X (1982); Elvis Costello – Shipbuilding (35, 1982); The Cars – Drive (4, 1984); Godley and Creme – Under your Thumb (3, 1981); The Corgis – Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometime (5, 1980); Nik Kershaw – Human Racing (19, 1984); The Go-Betweens – Streets of your town (80, 1988); Cry Before Dawn – Witness For The World (67, 1989); Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark – Souvenir (3, 1981); The Fountainhead – Someone Like You (1988); Desireless – Voyage, voyage (5, 1988) and The Outfield – Voices of Babylon (78, 1989).

Fragments

A looping walk taking in the fragments of the Great North Wood (Beaulieu Heights) and the Croydon Canal (South Norwood Lake and Betts Park) seemed like a good way to get some much needed exercise and make the most of the fine weather this weekend. To start my walk I headed up South Norwood Hill, huffing and puffing in a way that I would never have done before a year of working from home.

The Jolly Sailor

The circuit from South Norwood up to the lake was one of the re-discoveries of local lockdown last year. Not much has changed since then, though one of the pubs with a name linked to the watery history hereabouts, The Jolly Sailor, has closed. A writ of possession, dated 10th November 2020, has been pasted up on the boarded up windows. Its predecessor, The Jolly Sailor Inn, was the first public building in South Norwood in 1810.

On this occasion I had a wander through the surviving patch of ancient woodland at Beaulieu Heights, under the 499 foot tower of Croydon transmitting station, and then dropped in to the lake grounds from the north. Some signs of spring were on display, with plenty of blue crocuses, but the tree canopy still has its skeletal wintry look about it. Thick squelchy mud was plentiful despite the recent good weather.

Treescape at Beaulieu Heights

The anglers were out at South Norwood Lake and it continues to be a popular spot for families looking for a bit of respite from the tedium of lockdown. The swans gliding across its tranquil waters mask its 18 foot depth and past life as one of two reservoirs for the Croydon Canal. There are other fragments of the Croydon Canal, ranging from stretches of towpath to a couple of sections of canal – usefully marked out on a Google map.

Finally, my walk took me to one of those surviving sections of canal at Betts Park. The casual stroller would probably struggle to appreciate the history on display without a helpful information board placing this little stretch of water, lined by modern houses, in context on a map of the canal. Its historic origins are also well disguised by the concrete lining and stone gabion embankment that surround it today.

One of the surviving fragments of the Croydon Canal at Betts Park

The survivor placed in context (map from the information board at the park)

The other surviving section of Croydon Canal can be found at Dacres Wood Nature Reserve at Forest Hill and plenty of folk have written about the rediscovery of the canal and what can be found there.

It has been all too easy to hibernate through the winter months but now that the weather is improving I’ll have to make more effort to get out for more local walks like this, until we can set our sights a bit further again.

Signs of spring

A morning walk through South Norwood Country Park gave my lungs some good gulps of fresh air after a winter mostly spent indoors. The landscape in the park is still predominantly brown – a combination of bare branches, dry vegetation and paths blocked by thick squelchy mud to all but the most hardy. Take a closer look though and you see buds on the trees. It feels like spring can’t be too far away. Thank goodness – winter has never seemed quite so long.

South Norwood Country Park illuminated by a little late winter sun

I’m sure that everyone has found different ways to survive the latest lockdown. Mine has mostly been spent working from home and clearing out forty years of hoarding, from old schoolbooks to stacks of comic books (far too many boxes still to sort). The online improv performances of Mischief Comedy provided some much needed light relief along the way and the chefs at Cook, Klose & Soan and Piha Pies have supplied tasty treats to keep us well fed.

In our optimism for 2021, at the beginning of the pandemic, we pushed back some family celebrations by 12 months. Now we are going through the throes of cancelling all of that. It doesn’t feel like this year is going to be quite as free and easy as we might have hoped but we’ll make the best of it. I am longing for the opportunity to get out there and re-explore my city, then the country beyond. Anywhere but the all too familiar four walls of home!

Good riddance to 2020

Taking a look back twelve months, no one could have anticipated what 2020 had in store for us. A year of astonishing turmoil, isolation from the people that matter and lives sadly cut short before their time. At times the slog through 2020 has seemed endless, so it is a relief to finally see the year draw to a close. I hope that the new year brings us some fresh hope after the darkest days of winter lockdown.

Pressure rising

I began working from home on March 17th with just one day back in the office since then. I can’t say that I have enjoyed the extended hours or the way that the working day bleeds in to the rest of the day, but things have settled down quite a bit since those manic first few months. The wind down that the homeward commute provided has been replaced by a nightly scrabble match. A great way to re-focus thoughts away from work.

Travel

It is hard to imagine just how normal the first couple of months of the year felt. I somehow managed to get a photographic trip to Sri Lanka and India in the bag before Covid-19 swept across the world, but it still shredded most of my plans for the year ahead.

The measures we saw on arrival in Sri Lanka were some of the most stringent in the world at that time and quite a stark contrast with what I saw landing back in the UK. I remember standing on a platform in Mount Lavinia in early February when one of my fellow photographers offered the opinion that we should just make it back to the UK in time before the eastward spread of the Covid-19 epidemic caught up with us. At the time I thought that sounded a little extreme but that proved to be absolutely spot on. It’s hard to imagine not taking the virus seriously now.

In spite of the virus some travel has been possible as the world re-opened, including a rather wonderful trip to Germany to fulfil a long held desire to see the Wuppertaler Schwebebahn in action. Hopefully, the coming year will allow us to make some trips a bit further afield, including one of those pushed back a year from 2020, but I am far from convinced that these will materialise. I would like to be proved wrong.

Arts

By the time the first lockdown arrives my diary had plenty of plays booked. Out of 32 plays booked for the year, I managed to see 12. Most of the remainder have been cancelled but a few have been pushed back to 2021. Some of the refunds went back to the theatre companies and the charities that sprung up to support the acting world but that must have been a dip in the ocean with the scale of losses generated by the crisis.

Some of the theatrical highlights from early 2020

In the first few months of 2020 I saw some terrific plays, with highlights including the Duchess of Malfi at the Almeida; a gender reversed Taming of the Shrew at the Barbican; Snowflake at The Kiln; The Welkin at the National Theatre; Teenage Dick at the Donmar; You stupid darkness! at the Southwark Playhouse; Leopoldstat at Wyndhams; The Haystack at the Hampstead Theatre; Love, love, love at the Lyric Hammersmith.

On the re-opening of theatres I was treated to the marvel of Ralph Fiennes raging against covid and the government’s disastrous response in David Hare’s Beat the Devil at The Bridge. It was supposed to have been the start of a short run of plays that we would see in person but ended up being the only one we got to see before everything locked back down.

I have tried watching some filmed plays but have found it difficult to engage with most. The exception was the innovative Living Newspaper: A Counter Narrative from the Royal Court which was splendid in its fury and defiance.

Television

In a year when staying in and watching television became a way to stay sane through long months of lockdown, there was much to be enthralled by. The highlight for me would have to be Normal People on BBC, which unexpectedly stirred up all sorts of memories of the beginnings of university life and finding your way in the world. It really deserved all the hype it got.

As a newcomer to the world of Amazon Prime, Netflix et al there was plenty to binge on. I particularly enjoyed The Man in the High Castle, Thirteen Reasons Why and Sex Education. The award for most intricate and satisfying drama would have to go to Dark, the German language time travel epic co-created by Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese.

Sport

The re-emergence of competitive sport certainly helped carry me through the year, especially in those months when there seemed little difference between the working week and the weekend.

Highlights including the terrific grand tours with the excitement of the close victories for Tadej Pogačar in the Tour de France and Tao Geoghegan Hart in the Giro. I have been following Tao’s career with interest having picked up on his writings about his career on his Le Stagiaire blog ten years ago, so was delighted to see his triumphant win in Milan after the low point of the exit of Geraint Thomas after the most unlucky crash on a bottle.

I am not the motorport nut that I was in my twenties but the packed F1 season helped keep me going right up to mid December. Pierre Gasly’s terrific win at Monza and George Russell’s heartbreaking near-thing at Bahrain proved to be season highlights.

Staying local

Staying local has been the message for large chunks of the year, providing an opportunity to revisit places I had long forgotten and support struggling local businesses. I certainly have a better appreciation for what is on my doorstep. As the notice on a billboard in front of a local cafe says, buy local or bye bye local.

The pub sign for the Albert Tavern

The local area has seen some significant changes – our wonderful community pub, The Albert Tavern, was boarded up at the beginning of lockdown in March and Greene King have since announced that it will never re-open. It joins a rather too long list of pubs with long histories to have closed in recent years, most to be demolished or converted into flats.

In recent years many local pubs have been demolished, converted into flats or boarded up – including many with long histories. Among those to have disappeared in recent years have been the Goat House (closed 2004, demolished 2007 and replaced by a block of flats); the Duke Of Clarence (closed 2010, converted into flats); The Alliance (closed 2010, converted to a club); The Ship; The Portmanor (undergoing conversion to luxury flats); The Queens Arms; The Gladstone (closed 2007, converted into flats).

The promise of a new local library seems set to be thwarted at the eleventh hour following the news that Croydon Council had effectively declared itself bankrupt last month. Among a raft of measures floated to help address the £66 million pound hole is the closure of five libraries, including the new South Norwood Library. The consequences of the council’s investment in its house-building company, Brick by Brick, have been well documented through Inside Croydon‘s determined reporting on local developments.

New library – or not?

The only crumb of comfort that could come from the unravelling of Brick by Brick would be if it put paid to the absurd suggestion that South Norwood would be fixed by adding another tower block inside the South Norwood High Street Heritage Action Zone. The suggestion that anyone would have stood on the platform at Norwood Junction and been distressed by what they described as the aesthetically unpleasing ‘broken tooth’ skyline of South Norwood was too ludicrous for words.

My year in numbers

Statistics for 2020 will inevitably be all over the place. The figures for all sorts of measures from library book loans to public transport will look simply unrecognisable from any previous year. My personal stats are just as warped, though my holiday at the beginning of 2020 helped make them look more normal than they would otherwise be.

7,860 travel photos taken (down by 1,240)
250 games of scrabble (up by 250)
47 blog posts written (down by 27)
45 days in the office (down by 178)
12 plays attended (down by 32)
5 countries visited (down by 4)
2 rounds of ten pin bowling (down by 10)
1 steam locomotive seen in action (up by 1)

It hasn’t been the busiest of years for blogging, for obvious reasons, but the blog still racked up 29,819 views from 8,823 visitors over the last 12 months. To put that in perspective, the blog saw 29,797 page views and 8,501 visitors in 2019 so it’s broadly comparable – if a long way short of the 45,918 page views and 13,486 visitors of 2015.

There has been plenty written about the rise and fall of blogging. I only started blogging to test the water for a work blog that never materialised but enjoyed it so much that I have kept going. It’s surprising how much I have learnt from researching a trip or following up on odd things I have spotted on my wanders. I have no plans to give up now but can’t help but admire how bloggers like Diamond Geezer find something fresh to write about every day.

The almost equal most popular posts in 2020 were two oldies – Eight unexpected delights of Riga from 2016 and The last inhabitants of the Bourbon Tower from 2017. The most popular post from 2020 was A circular walk around Crystal Palace Park.

Lakeside wanders in semi-lockdown

The lockdown is easing across the UK, but in practice my re-shaped life will hardly change at all. The majority of staff in my workplace will continue to work from home with no re-opening of our London offices on the cards in the foreseeable future. Since we were sent home from work in mid-March I have been no further than a couple of miles from home.

The re-focus on things local has reminded me of many places I had long forgotten about. Over the past couple of weeks our walks have taken us to South Norwood Lake, which I haven’t visited since childhood.

Boating on South Norwood Lake

South Norwood lake is an unusual feature amid the urban sprawl. It is a man-made structure, one of two reservoirs created to feed the Croydon Canal which ran from West Croydon to New Cross, where it connected up to the Grand Surrey Canal. It was a route that required barges transporting goods to navigate 28 locks and numerous swing bridges to make it along the 9 and a quarter mile route.

The Croydon Canal was a commercial failure, closing in 1836 after a life-span of just 27 years. However, the reservoir remained and eventually found use for a variety of leisure activities – swimming, boating, angling and ice skating. Until the mid 1950s you could take to the waters in a motor boat called the “Skylark” and the hoists for the ship remain in place.

The canal itself was drained and used by the London and Croydon Railway Company to establish a railway line between Croydon and London. Remnants of the old canal survive in a few places and the route of the old canal has been wonderfully traced in a Google map created by Will Greenwood). There’s still a pub in South Norwood called the Jolly Sailor (on the site of an earlier pub built with gardens running to the side of the canal) and the first railway station in the area was named after the Jolly Sailor.

Nest construction on South Norwood Lake

The rich local history was a feature of the teaching in local primary schools when I was growing up, including Croydon Canal, but it is a long time since I gave this place a moment’s thought. It was lovely to re-discover in semi-lockdown, including the sight of two coots building a nest on the lake twig by twig (passing twigs to each other in their beaks).

One other sight that caught my attention on my walk to the lake was a stink pipe (a tall and hollow pipe intended to vent gases from the sewers) from Ham Baker & Co at the junction of Lancaster Road and Warminster Road which I can’t remember ever paying any attention to. There are plenty of these Victorian engineering marvels to be seen across South London, but easily overlooked.

Gallery

Local lockdown

It is eight weeks now since the lockdown began in the UK and life changed in ways that would have seemed astonishing just a month before that. In my area we have just seen the introduction of low traffic and exercise streets, an interesting initiative to stop these residential streets becoming rat-runs and to make social distancing a little easier. It’s the first time I have seen any Covid-19 road signs in my local area.

Covid-19 street signs in South Norwood

The sweeping changes recall Lenin’s line about weeks where decades happen. One way systems and screens in supermarkets, masks, social distancing, contact-free deliveries, the return to a weekly shop, remote working, video-conferencing, online team chat, near empty buses, quiet high streets, one-in-one out lifts, accelerated digitisation programmes, magazines shutting down print production, the dreaded daily statistics and so on.

In time we will hopefully resume something close to our pre-lockdown normality and the memories will fade. Many archives and libraries, including my own, are working to capture the strangeness of this time. Much of this will be short-lived material and web-content that would otherwise be lost to the historians of the future looking to understand how we lived through the pandemic.

I really look forward to the day when we look back at this time and these emergency measures once again seem utterly alien to us.

Spring at the (ex) Sewage Farm

One of the unexpected aspects of the lockdown has been the way many of us have paid a little more attention to the overlooked wonders on our doorsteps. South Norwood Country Park, more or less at the end of my street, is my re-discovery. In its quietest moments it was easy to forget about the current crisis, aside from the notices at the entrances and the chalked notices on the pathways calling on us all to protect the NHS.

A carpet of cow parsley in the woods

I guess that I first came to the park in the mid 1980s when my Scout Group visited the wild space known to us as the Sewage Farm to play wide games during the light summer evenings. My memories are a little hazy, but I know that we were split into two teams so I guess this might have been ‘Capture the flag’ or something similar.

The site was established as a sewage works in 1865 and saw use until 1967. On its closure nature reclaimed the site, a mixture of wetland and grassland, followed by the landscaping that came with its formal designation as the South Norwood Country Park in 1988.

It’s a little hard to visualise this less than glamourous past life on a casual wander through the park, though traces of its former life can still be seen if you look beyond the lush vegetation, such as the concrete channels once used to carry sewage to the lagoons.

During the lockdown I have been crossing the park once a week on my way to a weekly shop, giving me the opportunity to appreciate the changes as the trees have come out of their winter slumbers and into gorgeous blossom (especially the crab apple on the pathway into the park). Right now, the park looks particularly splendid swathed in fields of cow parsley.

The highest viewpoint in the park (created from the rubble spoil from buildings demolished after the Second World War) offers views that include local landmarks like the Croydon transmitting station at Beaulieu Heights, the Crystal Palace transmitting station and the floodlights of the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre.

I feel very lucky to have a 125 acre nature reserve so close to hand, a pleasure that I hope to continue appreciating once we finally return to some sense of normality.

Gallery

Easter in South Norwood

I get a little crazy stuck at home for too long at the best of times, but how things have changed in the past weeks! I have largely avoided going outside at all, except for a weekly food shop and a short walk at the weekend for exercise. Today, my walk took in some of the local sights nearest at hand that I have long taken for granted.

The streets of South Norwood would normally be quiet on an Easter Sunday, but this was quite different. The sight of temporarily boarded up pubs, empty shop shelves and firmly shuttered entrances all pointed to a high street that is not about to spring into life any time soon. I was also struck by the near silence – in particular the complete absence of church bells ringing.

Station Road, South Norwood, on an unusually quiet Easter Sunday

The first stop on my walk, the grade II listed St Mark’s Church, was originally built in 1852 and extended seven times between 1862 and 1890. The continual expansion was in part a reflection of the changing nature of the area – when it was first built the church served a local population of 1,300, but by the end of the nineteenth century this had increased to 13,000. It’s not hard to see the evidence of the many additions to the first building, the nave, as you approach the church.

The simplicity of the original rectangular design can be seen in the plan drawn up in November 1852 by the architects, Finden & Lewis, which is helpfully available online through the collection of the Incorporated Church Building Society (ICBS) at the Lambeth Palace Library. The view in my picture shows the chancel with polygonal apse added in 1869, at the junction of Albert Road and Coventry Road.

St Marks Church

The church has been troubled by problems throughout its history. At the end of the nineteenth century the church had fallen into a critical condition owing to settlement in the clay subsoil, necessitating the shoring up of the west wall with timber baulks (as seen in an illustration from the ICBS collection). The floor and aisles of the church had sunk. An appeal, the Twentieth Century Fund, was launched to raise funds for the churches of South Norwood, including St Marks. The cost of making the urgent repairs to the church was assessed as £1200-1400.

Fast forward 100 years and once again the church was assessed as being at risk. Repairs have since been made to the stonework (2013) and the chancel and south slopes of the nave and aisle have been re-roofed (2016) but the church remains on the Heritage at risk register. There were just over 900 listed places of worship on the register in 2019, varying from buildings in good condition with one significant element of risk to buildings becoming vulnerable to risk.

I am embarrassed to say that I haven’t been inside the church, or, if I have it would have been way back in the 1980s (when I attended joint Scout Group meetings in the church hall next door). I’ll have to take a look inside when the lockdown ends and life returns to some semblance of normal, particularly as I gather that the south aisle features stained glass of The Good Shepherd by Henry Holiday, whose work can also be found at Westminster Abbey and at Chartered Accountants’ Hall in London.

Portland Road Bridge

My walk took me underneath the Portland Road railway bridge and the line towards London. It’s not the most friendly of spaces for pedestrians, despite the addition of a rather lovely mosaic designed by local schoolchildren some year ago. The People for Portland Road community group have secured funding for a project that will see the introduction of a lighting installation to make the space more inviting.

As you can see from the photograph above, the bridge is protected by collision protection beams that were installed to prevent any damage to the railway bridge from vehicles ignoring the low height warnings. It has taken quite a battering over the years. The long history of accidents here includes a particularly bad spell of six bridge strikes between April 2014 and July 2015, including one incident where the roof of a double decker bus was sliced off.

The Stanley Halls

The next stop on my walk brought me to the Stanley Halls, one of many buildings associated with the inventor, manufacturor and philanthropist William Stanley (1829-1909) who moved to South Norwood in the 1860s and went on to open a workshop near Norwood Junction Railway Station.

In his later years William Stanley decided that the area was in need of a public hall, gifting South Norwood the Stanley Halls (1903-4) which the Pevsner Architectural Guide considers to be one of the highlights amid the “relentless suburban sprawl” of the area, described as “a vigorously eclectic group in red brick and stone, with two towers and a series of gabled roof-lines, adorned with the extraordinary motif of copper flowers in flowerpots”. Pevsner praised the building as “one of the most eccentric efforts anywhere at a do-it-yourself free-style”. The unusual complex was grade II listed in 1990.

The legacy of ‘Mr South Norwood’ was something we were encouraged to discover at my primary school but I suspect William Stanley’s name will be much less familiar to future generations as many of the buildings associated with him disappeared in the early years of the 21st century.

The former Stanley workshops, latterly in use as a joinery, were badly damaged by fire and later converted into flats. Stanley’s first home in the area at 74-76 Albert Road, known as ‘Stanleybury’, was demolished in 2003. Three years after this, Stanley’s last home at Cumberlow Lodge (1878) was demolished by developers before it could be listed. Finally, the school he founded, Stanley Tech, was renamed in 2006.

In the early 1980s it was used by the local Scout District for their annual gang shows, but hopefully the photographic evidence of me on stage during these will remain well buried!

South Norwood Clock Tower

A short walk along the High Street, took me past the boarded up shopfront of Kennedy’s butchers. The shop, built in 1926, was grade II listed in 2008 but looks more disheveled than ever. It was a place I was very familiar with up until it closed, on account of the superb quality of its pies and puddings, but it was also quite remarkable to step inside a shop with all its original fittings intact. It is another of our local landmarks on the Heritage at Risk register.

At the junction of Station Road and the High Street I reached the cast-iron South Norwood Clock Tower which was erected in 1907 to mark the golden wedding anniversary of William and Eliza Stanley. The clock tower, produced by clockmakers Gillet and Johnston, was paid for by public subscription which just goes to show the immense respect of the local population for a man who gave everything to his community. It is now Grade II listed.

From here I would normally have looped back through a tunnel under the railway station, the world’s first reinforced concrete underpass, built by Robert McAlpine and Sons in 1912. However, it would be impossible to stay socially distanced in the tunnel so I retraced my steps back along the high street instead.

The Albert Tavern

The last stop on my short walk, the Albert Tavern, was not as obvious a sight as the rest. You won’t get any argument from me that this is some pretty unremarkable 1960s architecture, but look behind the walls and you’ll find a much loved and quite simply terrific community pub.

The pub came under threat in June 2019 with the news that Greene King were planning to sell off the plot to developers to turn into flats, as reported on Inside Croydon in ‘Selling off the Albert for flats is like demolishing the Queen Vic’. The importance of the pub to the community is evident from the comments on the Change.org petition. It would be a sad loss for the area were it to disappear.

A public house stood on this spot from the 1860s until 9th July 1944. On that fateful night a V1 flying bomb destroyed the pub and ten neighbouring houses, taking with it seven lives. A new pub was built on the spot in 1966 and it has been going strong ever since. It is boarded up right now, along with other pubs in the area, in response to the lockdown. A sign on the boards says it all: Thank you NHS and key workers. We love you.

It’s a lovely place to enjoy a pint in better times. Let’s hope they are not too far away.

Farewell to 2017

Over the past few decades I have watched as the relatively well served high street in my local area, South Norwood, has gradually been losing the shops that once made it a great independent shopping centre – a story that I’m sure has been echoed across the country. It feels like 2017 was a turning point, seeing the arrival of some exciting new businesses as well as the departure of another long-standing store.

Emertons closed after 115 years

There are few historic survivors left in South Norwood so the closure of Emertons, The Ironmonger after 115 years was sad to hear. It was a brilliant store in its time which would always have just what you needed for home repairs, backed up by a really knowledgeable team. It’s going to be strange seeing Station Road without the familiar green storefront (although it has to be said that this was a latter day creation, the signage was bright orange when I was growing up and only met its end with the storm of 1987!).

It follows the closures of other long-standing high street businesses in the past decade, including Kennedy’s (1877-2007) which made the best sausage rolls anywhere in London and terrific Christmas puddings to a long-standing recipe with ale and suet. Other businesses that have disappeared from South Norwood High Street have included Boots, Co-op, Dewhursts (Butchers), Woolworths, Lawrences (Bakers) and Lorimers (Stationers and toy shop). When my parents arrived in the area there was also a branch of Mac Fisheries on the High Street.

The Clocktower (1907)

In many ways the trigger for the steady decline of the high street was the arrival of the first large supermarket in the form of Safeways many years ago (subsequently replaced in sequence by Morrisons, Somerfield, Co-op and now Aldi!). Up to the arrival of Safeways there were at least three butchers, three greengrocers and a couple of bakeries in the high street. In some ways it is surprising how long it took for shopping habits to change and the true impact to be felt on the high street.

It’s not just shops that have been disappearing. Not so long ago there were three banks in South Norwood High Street and at least two Building Societies. The last remaining of these will leave the high street when NatWest closes its doors on 22nd May 2018. I’m sure the nuisance value of this for me must be outweighed by the inconvenience of trekking further afield for local business owners.

Aside from this, I miss the re-assuring sight of Norwood Junction Models (1963-2013), just off the high street at the top of Portland Road, even though I had long since stopped spending my pocket money there by the time it closed.

The artwork ‘The Long Way Home’ in Norwood Junction subway (1912) shows Emertons in happier times.

More change is on the way with a proposal to re-locate South Norwood Library to a spot on Station Road next to Aldi in 2019. Much as I love the old library building, a place I spent many happy hours as I was growing up, the idea of creating a library within sight of Norwood Junction Station, next door to Aldi, seems a great way of binding the library even closer to the community. It’s certainly better than the talk of closing the library altogether a few years back with nothing in its place.

There has been some talk about the unwanted gentrification of South Norwood which rather overlooks the ups and downs of the past 100 years. I prefer to think that the arrival of some of the new businesses to the area as a much needed and welcome revival. Long may it continue!

Tennison Road Bridge re-opens

The year long closure of Tennison Road Bridge to road traffic has come to an end with the official re-opening of the bridge on 11th June 2015, five days earlier than originally announced.

The old bridge (with temporary footbridge behind)

The new bridge

It has seemed like a slow six months since the bridge was impressively jacked into place over the live railway, with spurts of development following days of relative inactivity. The new bridge opened to pedestrians on 18th March, followed by the removal of the temporary footbridge on 29th March (an exercise which required the use of a 1000 ton crane during a 27 hour posession).

Since then we have seen the demolition of the old approach wall; the installation of precast panels and parapets; the redirection of gas, power and water services; fitting out of street lights/speed cameras/mobile masts; four layers of road surfacing; the painting of street markings and the addition of assorted fencing. None of this has been quite as dramatic as the launch of the bridge in December but I have updated the pictorial timeline (below) to reflect the steady progress that got us up to the re-opening this week.

The flow of traffic in the area seems to have improved quite quickly following the re-opening of the bridge, though I suspect that many drivers haven’t cottoned on yet as it’s not quite as busy as it has been in the past. It’s good to see that the 410 bus is already back to its original route.

Although the road has now re-opened work still remains to reinstate the children’s playground in South Norwood Recreation Ground which is currently a well churned muddy field where the construction compound used to be. The latest indications are that work will continue here for several more weeks.

Timeline

11th November 2013

15th December 2013

9th February 2014

9th February 2014

9th February 2014

2nd March 2014

3rd March 2014

30th March 2014

30th March 2014

13th April 2014

17th April 2014

15th June 2014

29th June 2014

29th June 2014

20th July 2014

17th August 2014

31st August 2014

8th September 2014

20th September 2014

4th October 2014

5th October 2014

1st November 2014

1st November 2014

2nd November 2014

2nd November 2014

9th November 2014

9th November 2014

6th December 2014

6th December 2014

13th December 2014

21st December 2014

21st December 2014

21st December 2014

28th December 2014

1st February 2015

8th March 2015

17th March 2015

22nd March 2015

22nd March 2015

28th March 2015

5th April 2015

5th April 2015

5th April 2015

19th April 2015

13th June 2015

13th June 2015

13th June 2015

13th June 2015

Tennison Road: From one bridge to another

Over the last week the main span of the new bridge crossing the railway at Tennison Road, South Norwood, has been moved into position. The timing was a slight surprise as the original plan was to hydraulically push the bridge into place on Christmas Day when no trains were running, but the use of innovative techniques has enabled the engineers to move the span into place ahead of schedule and without closing the railway.

It looks like there is still plenty of work to be completed so the road won’t be re-opening anytime soon but it is still great to see the gap bridged again.

The sun sets over the new bridge

The whole exercise has been no small undertaking – this is the largest bridge replacement that has taken place in the South East for the last decade, evidenced by the impressive cranes and heavyweight equipment that we have seen being brought in.

The transformation has been fascinating to watch from the sidelines, from the demolition of the old bridge to the assembly and installation of the new steel bridge deck. Nevertheless, it will be good to see the works finish and normality resume in Spring 2015.

Postscript 21/12: After I published this post Network Rail released a rather wonderful timelapse video of the replacement of Tennison Road Bridge which shows the new bridge being launched into position using a hydraulic strand jack system. It’s hard not to be impressed!

Gallery

15th December 2013

9th February 2014

9th February 2014

9th February 2014

2nd March 2014

3rd March 2014

30th March 2014

13th April 2014

17th April 2014

15th June 2014

29th June 2014

29th June 2014

20th July 2014

17th August 2014

31st August 2014

8th September 2014

20th September 2014

5th October 2014

1st November 2014

1st November 2014

2nd November 2014

2nd November 2014

9th November 2014

9th November 2014

6th December 2014

6th December 2014

13th December 2014

21st December 2014

21st December 2014

21st December 2014

Tennison Road: Bridge to nowhere

Over the weekend of 4th/5th October 2014 the final two spans of Tennison Road Bridge in South Norwood were demolished, completing a process that began on 1st September. The bridge, which Network Rail says dated back to 1922, had been nearing the end of its operational life and is set to be replaced by a structure better suited to the times (stronger, wider and more resilient).

The part demolished bridge on 20th September 2014

I used to live on the approach to the bridge and it has always been one of the familiar sights that I associate with home, particularly as it was the last part of my walk back from school. It was striking to see the bridge retreating week by week over the autumn, with the bridge literally leading nowhere (indeed, Google maps currently shows two Tennison Roads terminating on either side of the railway with no connection between either).

If it looked strange viewed from a distance, it looked even odder to see a cross section of the bridge when travelling on trains passing the site.

The last span, as seen from a passing train on 4th October 2014

The railway cuts right through modern day South Norwood but when the first bridge was constructed it was surrounded by undeveloped open land. The construction of the first bridge in the late 19th century was as much a part of the residential development of the area as the houses that followed on both sides of the railway. Around this time other familiar features of South Norwood were being laid out (South Norwood Recreation Ground, 1889) or constructed (Holy Innocents Church, 1888).

The original bridge first made its presence felt on maps of the area in the late 1880s. An Ordnance Survey map from this time appears to show the plots being marked out for the approaches to the first bridge prior to its construction, remarkably before Tennison Road was laid. The equivalent map from 1896 shows the bridge firmly in place and the road fully connected. Assuming that Network Rail is correct, the earliest bridge(s) would have been replaced by the recently demolished bridge in 1922.

A view of Norwood Junction on 30th October 2010 with Tennison Road Bridge in the background

Before any construction started surveys were completed to make sure that there were no unexploded items left over from the Second World War. This was a wise move, given the history of the surrounding area. Some years ago one former railwayman from the depot recalled seeing the effects of a bomb landing near the bridge, resulting in all the roof tiles rising into the air from one of the nearby houses.

Incidentally, it was not just the depot here that was a target for the Luftwaffe. A report on enemy action on 20th January 1943 describes the deliberate attempt to kill engine crew in three separate incidents – one of which occurred at Norwood Junction. In this instance, Southern Region tank engine 2169 was on shunting duty at Norwood Junction when it was attacked by a low flying enemy aircraft targeting machine gun fire at the cab.

The first signs of change came at the end of January 2014 with the closing of the playground in the rec, a space that had changed little in the past forty years (I could have pointed out where I played at Star Wars as a ten year old without any difficulty!). The works compound that the space steadily transformed into is almost unrecognisable, taking with it some of the trees that had been planted in the park at its very beginning (surviving everything from bombing raid to the worst of storms along the way). I don’t dispute that change is necessary, but that doesn’t mean that you have to like the side-effects.

The temporary footbridge alongside the doomed bridge on 30th March 2014

On 15th-23rd March 2014 a temporary footbridge was installed to maintain the link between the two halves of South Norwood, for which I was very grateful. The bridge itself remained open to road traffic until 16th June 2014 and open to pedestrians until 24th July 2014. All the while the bridge offered some interesting perspectives on the work taking place on the embankments, the re-routing of utilities, piling works and reinforcement.

The severed bridge on 8th September 2014

The demolition of the bridge itself took place over five weeks in September/October with the spans nearest to the Woodside side of the bridge disappearing first. Spans 1-6 were demolished between 1st-8th September, span 7 was demolished between 13-15th September 2014 and spans 8-9 were demolished between 4-6th October. It looked at its strangest midway through, when just half a bridge was visible from the platforms at Norwood Junction. Once it had disappeared entirely it was hard to imagine that it had ever been there.

An encounter with the South Norwood bug

I am a somewhat reluctant gardener at the best of times, but the perils of gardening in South Norwood had never really occurred to me until I got bitten by an insect in my back garden the other day, leaving me with a rather striking ring mark on an inflamed leg. The end result was a four night stay in hospital, taking antibiotics by intravenous drip.

The staff at the urgent care centre at Guy’s Hospital and the various medical teams I saw at St Thomas’ Hospital were simply marvellous throughout my stay, providing superb care and reassurance from start to finish. I don’t think I have ever really appreciated the wonders being performed by the doctors and nurses in the NHS, but this was a real eye opener for me.

I have no particular desire to make a return trip to hospital anytime soon, but will not forget the time I spent inside, nor the kindness of my fellow patients and the medical staff.

Southbound steam

This weekend sees a celebration of the 150th anniversary of the opening of the Seaford to Brighton railway line, with steam specials heading to the terminus today and tomorrow.

BR Britannia Class 7MT 4-6-2 no. 70013 ‘Oliver Cromwell’ departs from Norwood Junction

At the same time, today’s railtour offered the unusual sight of southbound steam stopping at Norwood Junction (for twelve minutes) before heading onward. I am not sure how often this has happened since the end of steam on the southern, but it can’t have happened many times, if at all. It seemed an opportunity too good to miss, even if the forecast was pretty attrocious.

The much heralded heavy rain was nowhere to be seen for most of the morning but made its dreaded appearance half an hour before the railtour, conditions deteriorating steadily from this point until the scheduled departure time of 10.24am. Nevertheless, it was terrific to see the volcanic eruption as of BR Britannia Class 7MT 4-6-2 no. 70013 ‘Oliver Cromwell’ headed out of Norwood Junction.

It was lucky timing as this view is set to disappear shortly with Tennison Road Bridge scheduled to close on 16th June 2014 (ahead of its demolition and eventual replacement). A fitting finale.

Gallery

The view from the bridge

The railway line that cuts through South Norwood has given many a developer and urban planner a headache over the years, but particularly in 2013/14 as the two bridges that cross the line have required substantial repair (Goat House Bridge) and replacement (Tennison Road Bridge).

The existing bridge at Tennison Road is due to be demolished between September and November 2014 and with it will go the views in each direction – a vista of Croydon’s skyline to the south and a view of Norwood Junction to the north. The design of the replacement span for the new bridge is focused on the protection of the operational railway (ensuring that the impact of any road accident will be isolated upon the bridge structure) and this includes taller bridge parapets. The views are an unfortunate, but necessary, casualty.

A freight train passes through Norwood Junction on 25th March 2012

I would not dream of claiming that these are the most exciting or scenic views that you are ever likely to see, but the bridge has provided a window on the changing landscape of the area since the late 19th century. It has also been a view that I have become very familiar with over the years, from the moment that I grew tall enough to look over the top (or more likely, persuaded my father to give me a shoulder top view!).

Recently I came across a shot that I had taken of the view north of the bridge around 1990 and returned to photograph the matching scene in 2014, providing an interesting comparison of some of the changes that have taken place in the last quarter of a century.

The view in 1990

The view in 2014

In the time between the two photographs the sidings north of the bridge have disappeared, the industrial units visible next to the single carriage have been replaced by flats (in a nice touch the roof of the block mimics that of the building they replaced) and the scrapyard has given way to houses. In the background of the 2014 shot, Goat House Bridge can be seen as it nears the end of its renewal (whilst the Goat House pub has been replaced by a block of flats).

On the other side of the bridge the changes have been more dramatic – the old paint shop at Selhurst has been demolished, the lighting tower was cut down around ten years ago and a considerable number of sidings have vanished. I am sure that if you delved further back the changes to the views would be even more striking. It would be especially startling to slip back in time one hundred years to find the railway line electrified with overhead cables (in contrast to the ground level third rail electrification of today) and surrounded by a landscape of allotments/open fields!

It is quite astonishing to think how much change could be glimpsed from this bridge during its lifetime and I for one will be a little bit sorry to see that disappear.

Steaming into 2013

After a few months without any sight of steam, Merchant Navy class 4-6-2 no. 35028 ‘Clan Line’ made an appearance at my local station – Norwood Junction – today. It was a good local start to another year of steam photography, which seemed appropriate as one of the most exciting developments this year will be happening nearby – the opening of the Bluebell Railway‘s extension to East Grinstead.

Merchant Navy class 4-6-2 no. 35028 ‘Clan Line’ passes through a wet Norwood Junction…

Today’s steam special was a British Pullman service on a luncheon tour through the Surrey Hills operated by Venice Simplon Orient Express, taking a circular route to/from London Victoria via Guildford. Normally such excursions would take the main line through Selhurst but engineering work between East Croydon and Balham this weekend forced a diversion via Norwood Junction.

It is relatively rare to see a steam locomotive through Norwood Junction, though it is already the second time this year (a similar VSOE excursion was re-routed this way during the heavy snowfall of 18th January 2013).

…and approaches Goat House Bridge as she heads on to Crystal Palace

I have gone a long way to see some of the remaining steam survivors around the world but it is good to have a reminder of the unrivalled steam heritage on offer in the UK. The wide variety of preserved railway lines in this country and the incredible number of steam specials that can be seen on the mainline is quite astonishing fifty years on from the supposed end of steam.

Christmas Past

The roads are quiet, nothing is moving in the nearby railway yards and the only sounds are the first stirrings of family. The familiar pattern of Christmas is embedded in my head so well that I could probably tell you the entire timetable for the day without waiting for it to unfold (and as a creature of habit I quite like that). However, there have been some unusual moments in past christmases that I had quite forgotten about until relatively recently.

Amongst the boxes of photographs, slides and cinefilms at my parent’s home I found a small collection of slide positives taken by my father on Christmas Day 1975 or 1976 which show at least eight Class 33 diesels lined up outside Norwood Loco. The diesels were only ever lined up like this at Christmas, from Christmas Eve round to sometime after Boxing day, when all the diesels were in the depot – this was one of a number of lines. Another line was made up of nothing but Electro Diesels (Class 73s).

A long line of Cromptons (Class 33 diesels) outside Norwood Loco

At the time of these photographs just one driver was booked on to look after the diesels (in later years a second man was also booked on). My father was booked on to do this duty on Christmas Day 1975 or 1976.

The general idea was that he would start the first diesel and work his way down the line. When the last one was running he would return to the first and start switching them off. This would generally happen only once or twice per line during the day, with the intention being to stop them getting frozen up. This was done each Christmas for many years (the sheds were usually filled up with electric stock and 350 shunters).

The thought of a yard filled with all these diesels now is almost impossible to imagine and I was far too young to appreciate just how rare such a sight would become in the years ahead. This was simply a moment to enjoy for what it was and I must have been in my element.

Headcode JB

On this occasion my father changed the headcode on the nearest Class 33 to show my initials, JB, which the photograph above illustrates. The final shot is a picture of me at the controls of one of the Class 33 diesels.

In the cab

After all this, I kept an interest in the railways for many years until I reached my late teens. After that, not so much – until a chance encounter with a steam locomotive at Poznan in 2004 re-awakened my long abandoned passion. However, maybe it was in this moment in 1975/76 that my interest in the railways really began…

Britannia passes through South Norwood

Britannia (BR Class 7MT 4-6-2 no 70000) passed through Norwood Junction on time at 10.38am en route from Lewes to Ely. I took a short video clip from a popular spot on Goat House Bridge which hopefully captures a little of the spectacular sight. It was definetly worth coming out to see – she really looked and sounded absolutely magnificent.

Britannia, Bastille Day and Bicycling Cows

A happy coincidence saw the appearance of a steam locomotive in daylight through my local station, Norwood Junction, on bastille day. The thought occurred to me (and my brother) that this would present a great opportunity to witness the occasion and then chill out in front of a tv to savour what promised to be a key stage of this year’s Tour de France. How we could not take the day off work in the circumstances!?

The spectacle of a steam locomotive through my local station is a rare event and even rarer in daylight. I think the last time I saw that happen was in the mid 1990s, though I’ve seen a couple of locomotives pass through at night in the last five years.

Britannia passes through Norwood Junction

Once the geeky bit was out of the way I headed round to my folks to watch the Tour de France. Today’s stage took the riders from Cugnaux, across the Hourquette d’Ancizan, over the Col du Tourmalet and up to the summit of Luz Ardiden in the Pyrenees. The combination of a category 1 climb with two hors categorie climbs would surely re-shuffle the pack we thought. As it transpired, the answer was both yes and no. The order at the top has been shuffled but incredibly Voeckler retains the yellow jersey – for now. For us, it was compelling viewing with the valiant efforts of Geraint Thomas for much of the day and later on watching the Schlecks attacking again and again on the final climb.

One of the strange things about watching the tour is that whilst you appreciate the immense physical effort required the effect of hours watching the rolling countryside (whether that is mountain tops, zig-zagging roads or castles) often seems to be to hypnotise you into a state of complete lethargy in your armchair (at least, that’s my excuse). And where else could you get the associated amusements of, for example, a cow riding a bicyle* (as we did today)!?

Finally, getting back to Bastille day I have to say that the photos taken from the air this year at this year’s parade were truly remarkable. In particular the shots of three jets (one Rafale and two Mirages) flying over Paris were quite remarkable, in particular the three jets flying over the Arc de Triomphe and over La Defense. Quite unlike anything I’ve seen before.

*The bicycling cow was one of many creations made by French farmers in the fields adjacent to the tour to capture the eye of tv directors. My favourite this year has to be the moving bicycle created by tractors (for the wheels) and quad bikes (for the chain wheel) that appeared on stage 3 – check out this youtube clip of the bicycle made out of hay-bales and tractors.

Gallery: Norwood Junction

Apart from the sight of a steam locomotive through Norwood Junction a couple of additional photo opportunities presented themselves whilst I was enjoying my day off, including the appearance of one of GB Railfreight’s newest acquisitions – a class 66 diesel from Colas Rail (so new in fact, that it was still in Colas Rail livery). The diesel was working empty spoil wagons down to the Bluebell Railway for the continuation of their waste by rail programme.

66743 hauls empty spoil wagons through Norwood Junction whilst en route to the Bluebell Railway

Class 66 diesel 66743 (formerly 66842) heads away from Norwood Junction

A busy moment at Norwood Junction on the afternoon of 14th July 2011 with six units in/around the station at the same time.

Engineering work

The familiar tale of engineering work and travel disruption at the weekend is one of the frustrations that anyone in London soon gets used to (me included). However, for rail geeks it also provides the occasional pleasure of engineering trains to photograph. Just such a chance presented itself today as I headed out for the day…

Class 66 diesel 66717 runs through Norwood Junction just after midday on 2nd July 2011 whilst working 6G13 from Hoo Junction to West Norwood Junction.

Waste by rail

In the middle of a relaxing day off work I slotted in a moment to photograph class 66 diesel 66720 ‘Metronet Pathfinder’ passing through South Norwood with empty spoil wagons for Imberhorne Cutting on the Bluebell Railway. The “waste by rail” trains are being used to remove one thousand tons of waste each weekday as part of the ongoing work to clear the landfill that is blocking the extension of the railway to East Grinstead.

66720 'Metronet Pathfinder' on 6O10 Forders - East Grinstead seen passing through Norwood Junction at 12:33 on 25th February 2011

For further information on the four week “Waste by Rail” programme and the planned extension to the Bluebell Railway, see the Latest Progress towards East Grinstead page on the Bluebell Railway website.

Snow in South Norwood

The snow has been in South Norwood for a few days now and the appeal has certainly worn off after a few chaotic commutes to London. The usual combination of frozen points, failed trains and overcrowding on the few trains running have all played their part in the experience. Roll on the spring summer!

On my walk to the station today to catch one of the few Southern services operating (an all stations shuttle service between East Croydon and London Bridge) I took a few shots of the local scene in South Norwood. Overall the area has not been as badly affected as in February 2009 but the heavy snow further south has certainly had quite an impact on services.

A Southern class 455 unit passes a Network Rail test train topped and tailed by 97301 and 31459 outside Norwood Junction