Open for business: ‘Britain 2023, where the 20th Century libraries are closed and 21st Century foodbanks take their place’
SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT: This week, KEN TOWL wanders off on a tour of South Norwood, helped with a guide map that is available from one of Croydon’s libraries that is closed for five days of the week…
Oh yes!: the Zaha mural near Selhurst Park. Not 20th Century, but still eye-catching
The modern dictum that “everything is political” occurred to me at the very beginning of my 20th Century Society-curated walk around South Norwood yesterday.
An itinerary that includes the Regina Road estate is never going to be completely free of polemic (though more of that later). The thought was triggered before I even set off.
I had downloaded the map of the walk onto my phone but hoped to pick up a paper copy. The C20 Society’s website says that the map is stocked at the public library and also available from nearby cafés.
At 9am on Saturday I checked the South Norwood Library opening times on Googlemaps.. The library was due to open at 10am. On Tuesday.
It turns out that South Norwood Library is only open for a total of 16 hours a week. It has been, as the determinedly apolitical 20th Century Society rather coyly puts it, “the focus of a spirited community campaign in recent years”. Everything, indeed, is political.
Octagonal: South Norwood Baptist Church seems to sit comfortably where it is.
The C20 Society’s walk starts at Norwood Junction Station. From there, you go up to the Clocktower and turn left on Selhurst Road to make your way to the Library. I stopped in the Café Terra on the way and asked if they had a map. They had run out. They did, however, have excellent coffee and those Portuguese custard pastries. The bill came to a bargain £3.20. As I sipped my coffee I checked my phone: the 20th Century Society extols the 1968 library’s “distinctive brutalist design built on a small scale to respond to the character of the streetscape”.
When I got there, I found a handful of people in charge of a makeshift stall set out with food items. Since they were taking up the frontage of the eminently photogenic library, I approached them and asked if they would mind my taking a picture of the library which they would, inevitably be in.
Art Deco: Balmoral Court, ‘a lovely example’ of the style that fashionable in the 1930s. It will outlast the 1960s flats on Regina Road
They turned out to be the Rapture Community Projects Food Bank, a group of lovely volunteers braving the freezing weather to hand out food to anyone who needed it. They welcome any food items, clothes, toiletries. They set their stall outside the closed library every Saturday from 10am till midday, so if you have got anything to spare please feel free to donate. This is Britain 2023, where the 20th Century libraries are closed and 21st Century foodbanks take their place.
Onwards with the 20th Century Society’s walk, and up to the Selhurst Park football ground and its distinctly old-fashioned setting, surrounded by residential streets, very much part of the community.
Cop shop: the old police station is now spruced up as a privatised 6th form academy
Worth a look here is the striking mural of striker Wilfried Zaha on the gable end of a Holmesdale Road terrace. Post-20th Century, of course, but eye-catching nonetheless.
Next, the 1933 Catholic basilica of St Chads “combining the Italian Romanesque and Arts and Crafts building motifs”, according to the C20 Society notes. This looks all rather too grand for its setting, while the 1996 South Norwood Baptist Church, though octagonal and “bearing cross-shaped fenestration”, seems to sit comfortably where it is.
Balmoral Court, just a little way up South Norwood Hill, is a lovely example of the Art Deco style that was fashionable in the 1930s. It made a stark contrast to the Regina Road estate of 1960s vintage.
I could not bring myself to take a picture of the flats. They may be of interest for their external appearance (“built at a time of severe housing shortages, they were an innovative design”), but they have been in the news for the wretched state of their interiors and have become emblematic of an uncaring local government that focused its efforts on losing money via inexpert property speculation rather than providing decent housing for its residents. Everything is political.
Could do with a clean: the mural in the tunnel by Norwood Junction Station
The newest feature of the walk is the 1997 mural under the Norwood Junction railway bridge, a charming piece of community art that, quite frankly, needs a good clean.
The walk ends on a more optimistic note at the Harris Professional Skills Sixth Form on Oliver Grove, once a Metropolitan Police building. Its “hybrid of brutalism and postmodernism” is quite uplifting and allows the walk to end on a note of hopefulness. Not everything is neglected and left to fall apart.
Now, if the local authority could see their way to employing librarians, maintaining their housing stock and cleaning the infrastructure. And if anyone knows where I can get one of those paper maps…
Read more: Consultants’ year-long study looks to close four public libraries
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
- Inside Croydon – as seen on TV! – has been delivering local community news since 2010. 3million page views per year in 2020, 2021 and 2022.
- If you want real journalism, actually based in the borough, you should consider paying for it. Please sign up today. Click here for more details
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
As featured on Google News Showcase
- Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content
Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network
- Inside Croydon works together with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, as well as BBC London News and ITV London
ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SIXTH successive year in 2022 in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
Great article. I mentioned elsewhere that you need only hop on a 196 bus for 15 minutes to see that a 7 day a week library with recently published books is possible.