Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Croydon Facelift - Don't Hold Your Breath
Well well - the visionary architect Will Alsop has plans to turn Croydon into the Barcelona of South London. A vertical Eden project, an emerald necklace of parks, happy Croydonian flaneurs strolling on the boulevards trading bons mots, speckled trout swimming in the resurgent Wandle ... As one who lives downriver on that often delightful stream (and upwind from the concrete hell that is modern Croydon), I like the idea. We could do with the watermills back in action too, grinding snuff and other such necessities of modern life. Sadly, however, none of this will come to pass - it's just the latest stunt to help Croydon's never-ending bid for city status - but it would be rather marvellous if it did: the ultimate facelift for the home of the Croydon facelift.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
I don't want to stamp on Croydonian aspirations, but it will never be anything like Barcelona. Why does everywhere want to be the new Barcelona or the new Bilbao when in fact is should simply aspire to being the best of itself. So here is to Croydon becoming a better Croydon. Much better. Chin chin.
ReplyDeleteI'll drink to that Mopsa - Barcelona strikes me as a hellish place.
ReplyDeleteEric Pode came from Croydon - nuff said.
ReplyDeleteWill Alsop is, as you now, Nige, a pal and visionary may be just the word. We have shared many visions over a glass or fifteen. Croydon, however, is probably a lost cause - too big a town too close to London, neither one thing nor the other. The last time I was there filled me with a sense of having travelled back to the early sixties. Time had stopped at a singularly unwelcome place.
ReplyDeleteBut it has one wonderful church - J.L. Pearson's St Michael and All Angels - and an impressive parish church. Also the Whitgift Almshouses, one of the most surprising survivals anywhere... It's still hell on earth though.
ReplyDeleteBill Nighy grew up in Caterham but he was bussed to a grammar school in Croydon. Does that increase its cool factor?
ReplyDeleteThe name itself induces nausea. I grew up nearby and remember the malodorous Wandle as it weaved sluggishly through The Ponds in Carshalton Beeches near a chemical factory. All those places have the terrible sad odour of a suburban childhood. Wallington, Sutton, Cheam... The sadness is all. Didn't Mervyn Peake live in Wallington? Having unburdened myself of that - why is Croydon a failure? On a sunny day it always seemed the Manhattan of the suburbs. Anyone remember the Fairfield Halls where I first heard the Pink Floyd and the Rite of Spring? (Not at the same time). Surely we should value its modernity?
ReplyDeleteTread softly, Chris, for you tread on my dreams... There was indeed a chemical works near Carshalton Ponds - long gone now, but I still recall that head-swimming tang of Vinyl mingled with the fumes from the adjacent pig farm... Mervyn Peake did indeed live in Wallington, as did (in a very fine Georgian house) the Pre-Raphaelite Arthur Hughes, while William Tatton Winter and various minor painters settled in Carshalton, and the sadly underrated Horace Mann Livens in Sutton. I saw John Cale (Fear period), among others, at the Fairfield Halls... But I've never known Croydon as anything other than a hellhole really.
ReplyDeleteNige, there are worse hell holes. I may be coming to terms with all those memories. I also recall idyllic summers at the open air Purley Way swimming pool, and the evocative remains of the once famous, infamous? airport. The writer Lesley Downer and I once shared memories of Carshalton Beeches in a Tokyo restaurant. Perhaps it's time for the television series?
ReplyDeleteThey'd have to get rid of the hellish one way system though.
ReplyDeleteThe wife's family is from Purley and I always get lost driving through Croydon!
I'd be all for the snuff mills being brought back in to action.