Croydon: How it is - November 2023

This is my fourth annual November visit to Croydon to film it and capture the town "how it is". It is intended to be neutral and all I ask is that it is viewed as such.

Thanks to my mate Graham for coming along on the journey and supporting what I do.

I am a local historian and have made many films in the Croydon area so I do pick out certain historical elements (notably the architecture). Croydon is far removed from what it once was and I hope that this trip down memory lane will help you to remember some of the better times spent here.

The retail shopping experience has changed globally, what we see in Croydon may be seen in many more towns around the world. It is not clear at this point to see what the future may hold.

Chapters:
00:00 Start/Overview
00:35 Coombe Cross into High Street
16:40 North End Part 1
19:40 Whitgift Centre
29:25 Poplar Walk
31:25 West Croydon Interchange
34:21 North End Part 2
39:34 George Street
45:54 East Croydon Station & Close

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Information about the High Street Radio & Photographic shop:

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#Croydon

[philswallow]

All comments are reviewed before publishing. Please be respectful and keep comments in the tone that you see on my channel. I reserve the right to remove any comments that are disrespectful/negative.

[andyb]

I have lived in Croydon for over 35 years & after watching this I'm going to start looking up more often . Amazing the architecture & hidden stuff up above. Let's hope I don't tread in you know what.

[valeriefisher]

Thankyou for this video, I stopped going to Croydon when whitgift centre declined. Croydon used to be a good shopping day out. It is clear that like a lot of London towns and suburbs it is going through a period of great change. I have a lot of fondness for Croydon and I wish it luck in achieving some of its former glory

[triplefivesoulful]

I remember growing up in Croydon, and the Whitgift centre adn surrounding area's heaving with people - This was around 1999-2002.

The Nestle building had hundreds of workers who went into the town centre for lunch, buying goods from Allders etc.

I returned to South london Circa 2017, and shocked at whats happened. Every so often I visit the Library, and each time notice more shops closed in the Whitgift centre

[Tom-wdbs]

Thankyou - you reminded me why I moved out of Croydon - just not the same as it was at all - very sad

[BenRobinson]

It is almost impossible to describe the sheer scale of the decline of Croydon in the last 30 years. I was born in Mayday hospital 50 years ago, my grandparents lived in Derby Road and I spent a great deal of my childhood there, growing up I lived in Upper Norwood so Croydon was still our closest town center. It was such a vibrant and thriving town back then, it is depressing beyond belief to go back there now. Actually upsetting.

[SouthLondonForever]

I grew up in Croydon and my parents would always take me into the Whitgift Centre on Saturdays to do shopping, was always full of people. I moved away years ago but was back for a weekend earlier this year and thought I'd go and have a look depressing, there was barely anyone around, most of the shops closed. Croydon will always be my 'home' but could never move back

[johnsamu]

Great video and great comments. It's been almost twelve years ago since I visited Croydon and a lot has changed.
At that time the Whitgrift Centre was still lively. I remember that "all you can eat" Chinese shop and Reeves Corner BEFORE the fire and the looting.

[timjarrett]

I walked those same streets many times. Croydon was the place to shop when I was a kid, and when I lived in South Norwood. It's a great shame that there are so few shops there now. I was thinking at the start, "it doesn't seem to have changed that much really", then you went into the Whitgift Centre and I was totally lost. It has changed completely since I last went there, back in the days of the Forum Pub!

[Freesurfer]

Thanks for the video. Moved away 8 years ago. Croydon is certainly changing. More apartments and less shops. I hope more businesses come in to regenerate the area.

[jennibatten]

We always called the building beyond the station the threepenny bit building too!

[AnnieSpit]

Fantastic, excellent video of Croydon. Loved it in the 70s, the Forum Pub. Even in the 80s it was great and the shops were unique, they had the Gap, FUS jeans, so many different types of shopping. The pubs/clubs were great then, dr Jim’s, scamps. People used to come from all over to go to the Whitgift Centre. I lived in Purley and loved getting the bus to Croydon. I felt so safe there, such a vibrant place to go to. I used to go to the Classic Cinema as well. Thank you so much for this.

[fizywig]

I was a lecturer at Croydon College from 2004 to 2009. Was beginning to decline rapidly after 2011 riots it seems. Students at college were quite rough back then

[IndigoJo]

I grew up in Croydon and the High Street has changed beyond recognition, and not for the better. When I was in 6th form I used to get the bus from George Street which went right down the now pedestrianised bit of the High Street -- in days gone by it would have gone down North End, but was rerouted down Wellesley Road when that was pedestrianised (in fact, it was on the drivers' initiative that they stopped using North End; it was something the council and bus companies had been hesitating about). Come to think of it, they may as well reopen the High Street to buses as there aren't any shops for the pedestrians to go to anymore.

St George's was a nice little arcade, and I remember having tea and a sandwich with a lady who used to work with me at school in the late 80s, at the Panino Bar. There was also a shop down there which sold maps and outdoor equipment, and I was fascinated by the maps and used to spend time browsing in there. A bit dated but they pulled it down and haven't done anything with it; they were hoping Westfield and John Lewis would come to their rescue.

I remember many a Saturday afternoon in the Whitgift Centre, or browsing in the record stores on North End (there was an HMV, an Our Price and a Virgin Megastore) and going down North End for a slice of pizza after college. Whitgift was bustling before and after the 1990s refit. It's sad to see what's become of it. Grants on the other hand closed in the 1980s. It was a very dated department store which hadn't moved with the times and that's why it closed. Well before the rise of the Internet or the Croydon council crisis. It was derelict for years before they got round to redeveloping it into that cinema and restaurant complex.

The bus station seems to have come full circle; when I was a child, it was an open bus station with just lanes and small bus shelters, then they put in that structure made of big coloured blocks that I used to call Legoland, which originally had a cafe, an information centre, toilets and seating areas leading up to each exit where the buses stopped, and now the shelter building is a lot smaller and the station is more open air again. Of course, the original station with facilities went into decline pretty quickly. Regarding the 'Superloop' bus, this is the same route that was the X26 until this year and was the 726 before that. Until the 90s the 726 went out to Dartford and before that, Gravesend (it was originally the 725, then that got split into 725 and 726 and only the latter survived).

[lijie]

People are shifting towards the north, a trend today.

Croydon was rated as one of the most depressing places to live according to a recent survey. Its council declared bankruptcy two times in three years, certainly making it worse.

I viewed a house in Croydon last year, did a small tour, didn’t feel safe there.

[simondowley]

Used to go to modal Time in St gorges walk. Born in mayday hospital in the late 60s raised in Addiscombe. Left around 20plus years ago.

[anthonylynch]

lived in croydon all my life. i moved to Cambridge a year ago.
in that year i’ve returned a few times to visit my family, the place is gets worse on each visit, a real shame as i love croydon.
the council should be ashamed of them selves, with miss management

[garyshevel]

Hi Phil. Thanks for taking the time to expand your annual review series of Central Croydon with this sunny 2023 video. Indeed the pleasant weather was one of the few real highlights 😞. I was there a few days ago, only, I hasten to add, because I was on foot following my bi-annual hospital check-up at Mayday (I've grown up calling it Mayday and refuse to adopt the new name into my vocabulary !!!). Central Croydon - what a sorry state for a once thriving town centre to fall into. Quite frankly it's an embarrassment imo. I have fond memories of shopping there and also working there, spanning a period of well over 60 years. I have chosen not to go there for at least the past 7 years as I could see the decline setting in, choosing Bromley instead. Sadly that's even showing slight signs of following the demise of Croydon too. The dismal economy of recent years, plus people's shopping habits has certainly taken its toll on our once thriving town centre. The rise, quite literally, of tall tower blocks of apartments are blots on the landscape. That orange, purple and red monstrosity on Wellesley Road winds me right uo. It can be seen for literally miles and miles when travelling around South London and beyond. It's a shame you didn't film the overbearing, ugly tower blocks just around the corner from East Croydon station in Cherry Orchard Road (or Cherry Orchard Canyon as I now call it). They block out the sun and on windy days create a wind tunnel. Like yourself I always tend to look at the original old characterful architecture above the modern, trendy (but more often tatty) shop frontages and finding myself thinking of the craftsmanship that went into those in bygone days. That's all for now. Keep up the good work.

[zebedep]

Hi there. Sorry to say that Croydon is now an empty husk of a place, and I remember when it was thriving.

[cheekiex]

It used to be great to shop there at xmas, but now it is dead, especially the whitgift centre. I remember as a carpenter apprentice working on the forum pub, long gone