Woodside Tramlink
Trail
The walk begins at Woodside tramstop
on the former South Eastern Railway's disused Mid Kent
line and takes in the one-time hamlet of Woodside on the
edge of the Great North Wood. The old Woodside railway
station opened in 1871 to serve the nearby Croydon
racecourse. Races were held here between 1866 and 1890
just beyond the Lower Addiscombe Road opposite Spring
Lane. The station closed in 1997 and Tramlink opened in
2001. As it is a circular walk it can start at Blackhorse
Lane or Addiscombe tramstop.
- Exit Woodside tramstop by the
sloping path to Spring Lane, then turn right outside
the station and enter Ashburton Park. This is the
former estate of a large mansion built in 1788 and
demolished in 1924 when Croydon Corporation bought
the estate. When it went on sale in 1873 the mansion
was called Stroud Green House. The estate then had
vineries, an Italian garden, stables, croquet lawn
and an ornamental lake.
- Follow the path past the
tennis courts and pavilion towards Ashburton Library,
formerly housing an Anglican convent or sisterhood
usually called Woodside
Convent. The Community of the Paraclete and
St Michael's Orphanage for the sons of gentlemen
were transferred here from Hatcham in Kent by
the Rev. Arthur Tooth after he had bought the
estate in 1878. Here too he established St Raphael's
Hospital for female alcoholics. After 1924 the convent
moved to Otford Court near Sevenoaks. The library
occupies the former chapel and convent bedrooms but is
due to move to Ashburton Community School. The exterior
still retains the features of the original cloisters,
including the date 1882 when the convent building was
completed. Beyond the playground is the former
gardener's cottage, a two-storeyed house, now the
Lodge.
- After walking around the
library, follow the straight tree-lined avenue
southwards to the main road, Lower Addiscombe Road,
opposite Shirley Road, formerly Stroud Green Road,
beyond which on the left side the racecourse was
situated. Turn right and follow the road as far as
the Black Horse public house. A public house has
stood here since at least the seventeenth century.
Here turn right into Blackhorse Lane where on the
left side is Woodside Court Road, commemorating
Woodside Court, a late nineteenth century farmhouse
which can still be seen on the far side of the
Co-op car park.
- The walk can be extended
along Lower Addiscombe Road to the Addiscombe
tramstop (Bingham Road or Bingham Halt until 1983
when the railway crossed the road on a bridge).
Just before the tramstop is Colworth Road where D.
H. Lawrence was in lodgings at Nos. 12 and 16
shortly before the First World War and where he
wrote the first draft of Sons and Lovers
while teaching at Davidson School.
- Return to and follow
Blackhorse Lane, pausing to look at the attractively
landscaped tramstop. Cross the bridge over which can
be seen both the tramtrack and a little further on
the disused trackbed (now an unofficial wildlife
corridor) of the line which between 1864 and 1997
terminated at Addiscombe station, itself demolished
in 2001. From Elmers Road, next to the Church of God
of Prophecy, originally built as a Methodist mission
hall in 1910, the distinctive cat slide or mansard
roof of an old farmhouse, built in 1777, is visible.
It has been variously called Cooks Farm, Chestnuts
Farm or Cherry Farm. On turning right into Woodside
Green the front comes into view. It has been well
restored and is floodlit at night. Where Blackhorse
Lane joins Morland Road are the Woodside schools
whose buildings date from 1891.
- Follow the main road called
Woodside Green towards the two nineteenth century
public houses, the Joiners Arms and the Beehive,
taking notice of the row of cottages before the
former. Pay homage at the 1922 war memorial on the
edge of the green itself to the 318 Woodside men who
fell in the First World War. The green was acquired
by the Croydon Board of Health in 1871 for use as a
public open space.
- On the south side of
Woodside Green on the corner of Stroud Green Road is
Woodside Cottage, which had its own well at the back.
Beyond is the metropolitan drinking trough which is
usually filled with flowers.
- Beyond the Beehive,
Dickenson's Place leads off from Woodside Green to
rows of terraced cottages. One of these cottages
may have been used for making Enshaw's clay pipes
at the end of the nineteenth century. There was
also a smithy here from 1861
to 1937.
- Dickenson's Place leads into
Dickensons Lane, once a country lane passing Handley's
Brickworks. In the 1930s its 42 acres produced up to a
million bricks a week from the London clay.
Brickmaking ceased in 1974. The site is now an open
space, Brickfield Meadow, which can be reached by
following the footpath.
- Further along the north side
of Woodside Green, past Birchanger and Howard Roads
which dissect the green, is another Woodside Cottage.
This is set back from the road and consists of
buildings of different dates and rooflines, the late
medieval part, with the lowest roofline, being the
furthest from view.
- Return to the south side of
Woodside Green, cross the road and make for St
Luke's, an Anglican church begun in 1870 and finished
in 1926 but for a fire in 1949 requiring some
rebuilding. A wall carving on the exterior along
Spring Lane shows the traditional symbol for St Luke,
an ox holding a scroll.
- Woodside Baptist Church,
dating from 1905, is also on Spring Lane, occupying a
large area as further building was planned. On the
left is the site of the former horse-tram depot. Now
return to Woodside tramstop.
Written in 2003 by May
Johnson and Brian Lancaster, with help from John Gent, for
the Croydon Natural History and Scientific
Society
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