The Croydon Canal

History
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The Croydon Canal is a topic central to the development of Forest Hill. Its inception, realisation and demise overlap with the enclosure of Sydenham Common. The fact that the railway which replaced it doesn’t fit perfectly onto its exact layout is what gives this story some of its most fascinating potential. This way the canal (as an object of the imagination) is easily ‘locatable’ along our own daily routes, yet eccentric in parts. So it is both accessible and intriguing.

The advent of the canal has a phenomenal backstory so it carries with it an image of the zeitgeist important to our understanding of societal transformation, then and now!

Today we are shell-shocked at the pace of change and the canal (although gone) also gives us a framework to talk about a slower pace of life.

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Maybe one of our Forest Hill Society guided walks could follow a route which discovers features of the canal still visible around Forest Hill?

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We covered a bit of this when we did the nature reserves walk last year as many of them are as a result of the canal and railway developments, but I like this idea. I think we can add this as the “special” route this year.

Anyone want to help put this together?

(here’s a link to the details of some of our other walks: https://www.foresthillsociety.com/explore-se23)

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I have a map somewhere with a detailed overlay of the canal route onto a modern map. When I find it Ill post it here. Meanwhile there’s a quite recent piece on the route with photos of the modern setting here, The Croydon and Rotherhithe Canal – Tracing the former route into Surrey – London Canals

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Were you thinking of this one?

Canal route overlay map including Sydenham Common

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I walked the route once with the excellent Paul Talling, who wrote books on Derelict London and on Londons Lost Rivers. He does a guided walk along the route of the canal. Paul’s walks are always great fun and I’d highly recommend them- we’ve been doing them for many years. Croydon Canal Walk - London's Lost Rivers - Book and Walking Tours by Paul Talling

“These walks, all led by author Paul Talling, cover lost music venues/dereliction/lost rivers, canals & docks/dead pubs/TV & film locations, lost sports grounds and general social history followed by a few hours in pubs for all the local gossip. Join the mailing list via the website to be informed of ticket releases. ”

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I have his excellent Lost Music Venues book with an entry for the Glenlyn Ballroom. But that has reminded me about his other books, so thank you

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There was also a book published in 1986. Mentioned on the Norwood Society website Canals to Croydon and Camberwell

I have a copy of it somewhere, (my book filing system entails piling books up until they are nearly falling over then start another pile and so on ad infinitum) that I think I got off Abe Books as I walked the route back in 2017/18 and wanted to get as much information as I could about the canal in preparation. If memory serves me the map in the book wasn’t as accurate as the Google Maps overlay and the Croydon Canals website. For some reason the text on the Croydon Canals website was taken from a lost canals website that I could only access through the Wayback Machine on the Internet Archive so I am glad it was rescued.

The best bits of the walk were the start at Mercury Way, (there is still a mooring bollard on Surrey Canal Road), the walk from New Cross Gate to Forest Hill, Anerley and South Norwood. It got a bit tedious from Norwood Junction to West Croydon bus station but I am still glad I did it.

I am also sure there used to be a PowerPoint online with loads of images of the canal that I’ve seen.

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