Croydon Continued

I made a special effort to see the Riesco Collection of Chinese Ceramics at Croydon Museum before the council decides to sell off yet more of this important collection which was donated to the museum. How the council can get away with selling off at least 17 items from the collection is difficult to understand, but benefactors are going to think twice before donating anything to council run museums in the future.  http://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news/16102013-89-objects-missing-riesco-croydon-council

The trams are an added attraction to the town and a good way of moving people around. They have surprisingly good acceleration and ability to handle steep grades. I would love to see trams come to Guildford connecting the Research Park, Hospital and Uni with the town centre and then out to the East with a possible route down to Cranleigh along the old line. I can’t see it happening as the cost would be too great both in the infrastructure and in the running. But they have been very successful in Croydon and I have experienced trams in a number of other towns where they work very well.

Croydon

A look around Croydon before it gets the Westfield ‘makeover’  http://thecroydonpartnership.com/. At the moment it makes Reading, by comparison, look good! Croydon certainly needs an uplift although it does have plenty of busy shops it’s under pressure from other shopping centres and the demise of Alders has not helped.

There are some quite interesting building facades above the shop fronts, such as above W H Smith a good frontage probably dating from the 1920/30’s period when WHS architects were producing stylish buildings such as in Winchester (see my previous blog). WHS shops are now sadly lacking.

The Whitgift Hospital (Built 1596-9, restored by Butterfield in 1860)looks very out of place, other buildings of note being the church of St John the Baptist (mainly 1870 by G G Scott) and the splendid Victorian church of St Michael and all Angels (1885 by J L Pearson). I could not get into either of these on my visit which was disappointing.

Probably the only other outstanding architecture in the town centre are the Municipal Buildings (1892-96 by Charles Henman) with a prominent clock tower and grade 11 listed War Memorial (James Burford Architect with Paul Montford Sculptor, unveiled 22 Oct 1922).