Charlie Chaplin, one of the greatest movie stars of all time, is featured in the latest finial on the Coulsdon Art Trail.
Star quality: the Coulsdon finial of Charlie Chaplin and his mother, Hannah
Chaplin’s association with Coulsdon is, perhaps typically of his screen persona, a poignant one: his mother, Hannah, was among the thousands of patients kept in the former asylum at Cane Hill in the early years of the 20th Century.
Hannah Chaplin features alongside her famous film star son on the finial, which is situated on the new finger pole at the entrance to Cane Hill Drive at Marlpit Lane roundabout.
Finials are small, stylised metal models, and over the past six years a dozen have been placed at the top of signposts and lampposts around Coulsdon town centre, commemorating the history of Coulsdon and Smitham Bottom.
The subjects are selected from a list of suggestions that were put together from a public consultation by East Coulsdon Residents’ Association.
Charlie Chaplin is thought to have been born on East Lane market, Walworth, in 1889, the son of music hall performers Hannah and Charles Snr (no birth certificate exists to confirm all details with confidence).
When Charlie was just nine, his mother suffered a serious mental breakdown, leading to her being admitted to Cane Hill in September 1898. Although she was able to return home in 1901, she was readmitted in 1903. Charlie and his brother, Sydney, were regular visitors to Cane Hill until they went to seek fame and fortune in America.
Hollywood star: Charlie Chaplin was the biggest movie star in the world in the early 1900s
Hannah Chaplin finally left Cane Hill in 1921 when the two brothers were able to take her to California and provide her with a new home and 24-hour care, with Charlie by then one of the world’s biggest movie stars.
Hannah Chaplin died seven years later, in August 1928, with Charlie at her side and was buried in the Hollywood Forever cemetery.
Charlie Chaplin began performing on stage aged 14. At 19, he joined the Fred Karno touring company, which took him to America where he quickly gained widespread popularity. Having devised and directed his “The Tramp” character, by 1918, Charlie Chaplin was one of the world’s best-paid and best-recognised figures.
The Chaplins’ Coulsdon finial is the 13th devised and commissioned by the local residents’ association.
The 12th in the series of Coulsdon finials, of 19th Century navvies building the London to Brighton railway, with tunnels and cuttings, was unveiled earlier this year, in the community garden at Coulsdon South Station as part of Rail 200 – the celebration of 200 years of British railways.
The 11th, of a woolly mammoth, was unveiled last year: it commemorates the discovery of the bones of the ice age animal that were discovered in 1897 by those same navvies when they were digging out the Quarry Line, a fast track that went through the grounds of Cane Hill.
The first three finials were unveiled in early 2021, with a further two put in place in 2022.
Two more went up during 2023, including one to commemorate John Logie Baird.
In 2024, a finial was positioned outside the Coulsdon Club, recognising one of Britain’s greatest distance runners, and Coulsdon resident, Gordon Pirie.
Well-positioned: the Chaplins finial is close to the site of Cane Hill
Other Coulsdon finials include James Cooper, a notorious highway man who was arrested, tried and executed at Smitham Bottom in August 1749, and the 1788 visit to the town of the Prince of Wales, who was to become King George IV, in order to watch an illegal boxing match.
The Coulsdon Art Trail finials also include portrayals of Cuthraed, the Saxon warrior after whom Coulsdon is named; a flower, the greater yellow rattle, which grows prolifically on Farthing Downs and Happy Valley; the Surrey Iron Railway, Britain’s first public railway; the first cricket match on Lion Green in 1739; and Emmeline Pankhurst, who spoke on Votes from Women in April 1911 at Smitham Parish Hall.
- The Coulsdon Art Trail has been paid for by ECRA, with additional donations from individuals and businesses of Coulsdon. If you would like to donate for the next finials, please contact East Coulsdon RA at info@eastcoulsdon.co.uk
Read more: Coulsdon finial gives ‘Puff-puff’ Pirie a proper podium finish
Read more: How Dick Turpin’s life of crime included a hold-up in Shirley
Read more: Coulsdon signs leave a trail of Saxon kings, cricket and plants
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
Passport to Chocolate: chocolate-making workshops at Cocoa Jones
Every Thursday, Friday and Saturday from August 6
Classes at 12pm and 3pm
Book online by clicking here
Price: £15pp
Where: Cocoa Jones Chocolate, 2 The Parade, Old Lodge, Purley CR8 4DG.
PAID ADS: To advertise your services or products to our 10,000 weekday visitors to the site, as featured on Google News Showcase, email us inside.croydon@btinternet.com for our unbeatable ad rates
- 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. Our comments policy can be read by clicking here
- Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network
Is the name Coulsdon derived from Cuthraed? There is a short (cul-de-sac) road off Brighton Road just south of the roundabout at the southern end of the Coulsdon bypass (Farthing Way) called Cuthered Mews. I thought that might be named after Cuthraed?
Perhaps the area should have a finial for David Bowie, after his brother was at Cane Hill….and to get our own back for David B hating Croydon?
I knew Charlie Chaplin had a link with Cane Hill through his mother, and I wondered if Michael Caine had a link too, but I think he and Charlie Chaplin (just) both came from Southwark (Walworth and Rotherhithe respectively) ?!
Caine was from the Elephant.
It was his older half-brother, David Burchell, who was in Cane Hill for nearly 50 years, “a family secret the actor only discovered after his mother’s death”.
Not many people know that.