New Year, new “at risk” status for the Leslie Arms, the Grade II-listed Victorian pub building on Lower Addiscombe Road, but with no prospect of a satisfactory resolution in sight.
‘At immediate risk’: Historic England has issued a further warning about the state of disrepair of the Leslie Arms
As we enter 2025, it will be more than two decades since the pub closed, as its owner, multi-millionaire property developer Anwar Ansari – he of the out-of-control Turkish guard dogs in Lloyd Park – attracts another controversy.
Historic England has updated its heritage notices for the building, saying that it is at “immediate risk of further rapid deterioration or loss of fabric”.
According to Historic England, Ansari has agreed the necessary course of action, but he’s just failed to implement it.
It is not as if Ansari has not had plenty of time, or opportunity, to act.
In 2019, The Victorian Society called for the Leslie Arms to be found a new owner to save the building and have it re-opened as a pub – something Ansari has never intended to do.
While the upper floors have been converted into flats for residential use, the ground floor remains unused, with the historic pub fixtures and fittings – also subject to Historic England listing – reportedly lost or in urgent need of maintenance.
An earlier building on the site opened as a beer shop in 1851 and was one of the favourites of the cadets from the East India Company college nearby.
Run by the local brewery Nalder and Collyer, it was rebuilt in arts and crafts style, together with a matching parade of shops, in the 1880s.
The Victorian Society said, “This pub is permanently closed, despite many planning applications. Built by Croydon brewers Nalder and Collyer, this pub occupies a prominent position at the south end of Cherry Orchard Road, but has been closed for several years.
At risk register: SEGAS House on Park Lane is listed at risk, its condition rated as ‘poor’
“In an area undergoing so much development, it is crucial that pieces of our heritage such as this are protected.”
In meetings with council planners and ward councillors, owner Ansari has stressed how he is determined to restore the building to its former glories and how the place could become a thriving asset for the community.
“A particularly intractable case, this is a building of great quality where continued pub use should be viable. The right owner is needed!” the Victorian Society said, as it added the Leslie Arms to its Top 10 of endangered 19th Century pubs.
Croydon’s heritage buildings are, often, in a sad state, with the dysfunctional, cash-strapped council neither use nor ornament when it comes to any kind of enforcement action.
Other Croydon buildings on the at risk register include:
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