Croydon has the reputation of a London satellite that gets mocked by people who haven’t been there. Walk five streets and you find one of the oldest market towns in England, a charter from 1276, a Tudor archbishop’s palace, and 200 acres of ancient woodland.
The dominant cultural reference for Croydon is a 1980s sitcom punchline. The dominant actual Croydon is a settlement that predates the Norman Conquest, a market town with one of the oldest royal charters in England, and a borough that contains one of London’s only true Tudor royal palaces. Visitors arriving via Avondale tend to spend a day walking it before catching the train into central London, and most of them leave more interested in Croydon than in Westminster. This is the corrective.
An open-air market at the same location, on most of the same days, for 749 years. The royal charter was granted by Edward I in 1276 to Archbishop Robert Kilwardby, which makes it older than every London market except Borough (1014) and a handful of others. It runs Monday to Saturday on Surrey Street and the lanes behind it. Fruit and veg, fabric, household goods, the occasional second-hand record stall. The market is at its best around 11am on a weekday; arrive earlier and the stalls are still setting up, later and you miss the best produce.
The summer residence of the Archbishops of Canterbury from the 9th century onwards, with the surviving buildings dating mostly to the Tudor period. Henry VI, Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Elizabeth I all stayed here. After the palace was sold by the Church in 1780, it became a calico-printing factory; today it’s a school (Old Palace of John Whitgift School) which opens for public tours on selected days. The Great Hall has the original hammerbeam roof. Worth checking the tour schedule before you visit.
The largest park in central Croydon, donated to the borough in 1928 by Frank Lloyd (who at the time was the proprietor of the Daily Chronicle). The high point of the park, on the eastern edge, gives a clean view of the central London skyline — the Shard, the Walkie-Talkie, the Cheesegrater, all of it. Local secret: this is a much better skyline view than most of the well-known central London viewpoints, and you have it to yourself most weekday mornings.
A National Trust-managed ancient woodland on the southern edge of Croydon, twenty-five minutes’ drive from central London via the M25. Bluebells in late April and May, hornbeams and oaks throughout the year, decent off-lead dog-walking. Park at the Old Farleigh Road entrance; bring proper shoes; allow two hours.
Best evening venue in south London. Forty-odd street-food vendors arranged around a central seating area in a building made out of shipping containers, with a music stage at one end. Open every day, busiest Friday and Saturday evenings, manageable on weekday nights. Don’t arrive expecting fine dining; arrive expecting six different cuisines on one table at £10 a plate. The cocktail bar at the back is good. Kids welcome until 9pm.
Three miles north of central Croydon, technically in the borough of Bromley but practically Croydon’s northern garden. The remaining land of the original 1854 Crystal Palace pleasure grounds, including the famous Victorian dinosaur sculptures (the world’s first life-sized dinosaur sculptures, restored in 2003). 200 acres, with a maze, a lake, the National Sports Centre, and a children’s playground. A rare proper London public park. Train back to central London from Crystal Palace station, fifteen minutes.
The South Croydon and Sanderstead end of the borough is quietly food-strong. Albert’s Table on South End is the longest-running “proper” restaurant in Croydon, and the place to book for a Saturday-night sit-down. Kasoor on Selsdon Road runs the most-talked-about Indian kitchen south of the river. El Sazon Picanton, a Colombian place tucked into Wellesley Road, is the kind of unfussy regional restaurant central London used to have before rents made it impossible. For breakfast, the Forty Foot Brewing taproom does an excellent Saturday-morning long brunch.
For groceries, the Sainsbury’s on Selsdon Road handles the weekly shop, the Co-op on Coombe Road is the local convenience, and the Surrey Street Market handles fresh produce.
Croydon is not Mayfair. It does not pretend to be, and visitors who come expecting Mayfair will find Croydon disappointing. What Croydon is: a substantial south London town with eight centuries of market history, a Tudor palace, ancient woodland, a working evening venue, and direct trains every fifteen minutes to central London. Stay here for a week, do central London during the day, eat at Boxpark or Albert’s Table in the evening, and you will leave with a clearer-eyed view of what London actually is than someone who never left zone 1.
If you’re booking a stay in this corner of London, Avondale is on a residential street ten minutes’ walk from South Croydon station, and most of what’s in this article is within fifteen minutes’ drive. More on the area as a London base.