This is the most surreal journey you'll ever take on the tram. One moment you're in East Croydon, then suddenly it pivots right, and you're in the countryside....it has to be experienced
Turns right at Sandilands onto the trackbed of the Woodside to Sanderstead railway line, in a cutting that has always been leafy. Suburban South Croydon (very respectable) goes on above your head.
As a child/teenager growing up in New Addington in the 1960s/70s, we really were out in the sticks. The nearest cinemas were in Croydon and the only way to get home was by bus. Unfortunately the buses stopped quite early so you had a choice of walking home or missing the end of the film. No cab would go to New Addington in those days and night buses only went into London. West Wickham might technically be the nearest rail station but there were no direct buses there. I remember Fieldway being built and the Council did what they often do and moved all the problem families there into small properties with tiny gardens which is what led to the issues in the early years. The older parts of the estate sort of got tarred with the same brush. There were three pubs and there's always been a community centre, which I believe has been recently rebuilt. We also had a library and swimming pool so not completely bereft. The other issue was weather; being in an exposed spot we'd often get snowed in or engulfed in peasouper fogs.
Having grown up in New Addington I am torn, as a kid the open green space was brilliant. Heading off to the woods with your mates, bike rides, a free air show once a year. Having moved away as an adult I now see the lack of investment and social deprivation but as you noted, I would still vociferously defend it from its detractors. Great video 👍
This only shows how our needs change with time... Also, you must be aware that today we are yearning for open green spaces, we are dreaming about the bike trip with friends into woods, and are ready to travel for miles in order to pay entrance fee for air show, so...
The Croydon Tram system has gone full circle. Croydon to Wimbledon uses the old SR railway trackbed, which was used by the Surrey Iron Railway ,a Very old "Tramway" in the early years of the Nineteenth century. What goes around........ etc !
@@JagoHazzard The Surrey Iron Railway wemt all the way down to Merstham in Surrey. There is still evidence of it to be seen, but the construction of the M23/M25 motorways and the realignment of the A23 destroyed much. Weighbridge Cottage, Merstham, now a private residential house, is thought to be the second oldest surviving railway building in the world.
40s, 50s and 60s low cost public building tend to look the same, no matter where you go but the East Germans did have a touch of 'style' you don't see elsewhere.
@@simonf8902 I presume it's Queen Elizabeth the 2nd , She is the only queen that can shoot you to death , as she is still born in the middle ages ,so it's no surprise .Old habits dies hard
I grew up in New Addington. Fieldway was dodgy at night then. You did get a shot of where I used to live. No buses to West Wickham then, we did have express buses to Croydon, the C1-C5. You paid into a Johnson Box and no ticket. Many mornings with packed Daimler DMS buses the kids would get chucked out when the bus ground to a halt ascending Gravel Hil. We had to walk up to the top of the hill and the bus would crawl up and we got back on. We had Routemasters on the 130/130B and I know most of the conductors on first name terms. Fun times!
Those pre-war semi-detached houses are very common in North East London going into Essex. We used to play a game whilst walking up the road in which I grew up. "Spot the bombed house". All the houses have the same roof and window designs, except the ones which were hit by bombs. After the war, they tried more or less, to rebuild the bombed out houses is a similar style but used cheaper materials and the overall design features and window patterns don't match. Going back there today, it's surprising just how few of the owners have changed the original Window pattern designs. Many, despite having added double glazing, have nevertheless mimicked or recreated the original pattern.
Not far off actually. If you remember the 2011 London riots, those rioters eventually made their way up here and lots of people stood together to stop them. www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news/9192545.new-addington-stood-united-to-protect-the-area-from-rioters/
I discovered New Addington some years ago when taking the tram all the way to end to see what was there. On the same branch the woods at Coombe Lane stop are an absolute delight to walk in on a quiet summer afternoon. New Addington itself frankly doesn't deserve its reputation. It's a charming place at the end of the line with lovely green spaces - the Addington Vale is wonderful to see and within easy walking distance of the tram stop.
Remember how shocked my Mum was when she discovered my first girlfriend lived in New Addington. We lived in a "respectable" part of Croydon. It was a pig getting to her place on public transport though. Only one bus route (130) or a cab if you were flush.
As someone who has literally never heard of New Addington, when you showed the street views I was amazed by the place, such a calm and beautiful place to live in. Hadn't you mentioned the social problems and stigma associated with the town, I'd get the most positive view of it.
It's an area that ought to be a lot better than it is. The idea of having a garden village on the outskirts of Croydon with lots of green space running through it was a good one. The problem was that inadequate transport links, inadequate community facilities and employment opportunities, and it being a socioeconomic monolith of social housing for low-income families meant that it never fulfilled those possibilities. If you look at the Indices of Deprivation (dclgapps.communities.gov.uk/imd/iod_index.html), it scores very well for living environment, and surprisingly well for crime - surprising for me because growing up nearby, the line was always that if your car got stolen you would just go round and round New Addington until you found it, and mostly that turned out true - but for income, employment, health and education it does really poorly. Perhaps no worse than other council estates, but where New Addington stands out is the sheer size and scale of it - a population of over 20,000.
During the construction of Tramlink I was lucky enough to be invited to tour the works in progress. When at New Addington, those on the tour were told that the town's original name was the New Croydon Sanitary Housing Estate.
My flat features in this video, right by the offending "Wednesday" signage. Funny enough, the bin men now come at random times of day and week. New Addington, suffers from the perceptions of bigots from more affluent parts of Croydon. Sometimes described as a white ghetto, populated by displaced East Ender's after the second world war, the people of the area held a survivor persona which added to the community feel. These people were and still are tough, not afraid to man up to the job if needed. No snowflakes here, other than those that fall from the sky. The winters used to be much harsher than recently, but when it does, this place comes alive. On the hills around the place I have seen Snowboarding and Husky sleds, as well as quad bikes, making best use of the wide open spaces which are plentiful. New Addington is flanked by woodland on either side but one side contains more ancient trees and the other more chalk down land, so the diversity of flora and fauna is immense. The views of London from the hill on top of where we reside are spectacular. From my top floor flat, I can see three golf courses, the woodland nature reserve at Selsdon and the entire London skyline, the Tram stop is a stones throw and 20mins to East Croydon stn. All this for a rent of well under £150 pw ! Ssshh! sometimes the reputation may serve us well. We border the counties of Kent and Surrey and are well positioned for trips to London and the South Coast. My only grumble is the Island feel, I prefer the diversity and vibrancy of East London, especially from the rivers and canals, from which we are far from any here. But if you like fresh air and space, you could do much worse than live here. Croydon Council it would now appear has not just let this area down, but Croydon as a whole. With the bankruptcy will come cuts to services and the hard work to uplift will now be undone. Never underestimate the power of a few people to mess it up for the many, but one thing is for sure the people of New Addington will survive whatever comes there way.
Well said, I'm in Biggin Hill and I've heard it all about New Addington but I've never had any trouble there and it's great having Lidl just up the road
First time I went to new addington I nearly got robbed. My father used to work on the gas mains. When he was working in new addington they chavs tried to break in to his van. He had to threaten to remove their heads with a clay graft. Addington is a generally unpleasant place in my experience.
We moved to this area in 2017, having known and been wary of its reputation for some years. We would never have considered it were it not for the tram, whose impact on social mobility cannot be overstated. Our neighbourhood is great, all privately owned, fantastic neighbours, families everywhere. We overlook a wide green and it is like being in the countryside. We can drive out into the country in 10 minutes, and we both commute to Central London which can be done in under an hour if you time it right. We've rarely seen any trouble, certainly no more than any other part of London we've lived in. The only thing that might force us to move is a lack of secondary schools in the immediate area - you'd need to apply further afield, but there are good schools only a tram or bus ride away. In all it's really not bad. As others here have said it's the ineptitude of the now bankrupt Croydon Council that will harm the whole borough more than any other factor.
I ended up in New Addington when I took a bus that I thought was headed into Croydon town centre - passed the nearest stop without even recognising where I was - so stayed on for the ride thinking all the time that I wouldn't want to live out here without a car. When New Addington tram stop hoved into view, I was never so relieved.
I love the way you sneak social history discussion and critical analysis of post-war town planning into a video supposedly about trams! Nicely done - more of the same please.
Takes almost an hour. I take the 64 all the way from Croydon hospital all the way to New Addington when I come out from the Moorfields eye clinic every few months. Due to the drops they put in my eyes to photograph them I can not see much for a couple of hours. I can find my way to the bus stop but often have to ask somebody to tell me when the 64 arrives. By the time the bus arrives at New Addington my vision is improving and I get lunch from the fish and chip shop and eat it on one of the seats nearby. Strange that they would have considered a tramway in 1950, just two years before the last London trams were withdrawn but I believe a short section was actually built in 1951 to serve the Festival of Britain.
Wow, the amount of comments saying New Addington is a rough dangerous place, I lived in Northdowns cresent from 77 to 84 and didnt see any trouble at all! I enjoyed school, made lots of friends and frequently ventured around the parks and woods as there were open greens everywhere. I was part of the swimming team, went to scouts and loved the toy shop at the parade. Many happy memories! Infact I moved to Gloucestershire in 85 to a tiny village that had a crime record through the roof and the highest heroine use in the UK. ill always love New Addington, great place :)
I used to work down the road from there at the Selsdon park hotel.... now im back in Christchurch, New Zealand and work in the suburb of Addington here😲, I rode the trams many times and have wonderful memories! Great videos👍
I remember being taken to New Addington swimming baths 50 odd years ago (we lived in nearby West Wickham). Back then the place had a bit of a reputation and seeing it for the first time was quite daunting, as it was so different to our own very tame version of suburbia. The baths were great, though - clean, new and airy - very different from the Victorian baths at Beckenham that we were used to. I'm glad New Addington is getting some investment again.
If anyone is thinking of taking a tram to New Addington to see the countryside, then don't fail to change at the New Addington tram terminus onto the half hourly 464 bus. This was introduced at the same time as the tram, mainly to link it with Biggin Hill (via the narrow and scenic Salt Box Hill), but then continues out into the countryside again to Terminate in the Surrey Village of Tatsfield, where there is a quite pleasant pub. Quite a remarkable route for a TfL service.
You can see the same thing with other planned communities. There is a stark difference between the pre-war Garden Village/City concepts and the largely post-war New Towns. new Addington seems to have picked up not enough of the former and too much of the latter. The former being much more concerned with open space and vastly superior housing (compared to that typical of the era), the latter based on essentially forced migration out of bombed or otherwise condemned city slums. In the middle are the post-war council housing estates scattered all over - these were built in the late forties/early fifties, before the blight of poorly executed Brutalism, with ample, individual household gardens even for maisonettes, with bus routes planned in and in some cases businesses "encouraged" to locate nearby.
There seems to have been a Stranglers tribute band called (appropriately) the Manglers whose rhythm section featured the Addington brothers: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-260kDEcqSdg.html
I love these things: garden villages reveal so much about the planners and the adaptations by residents say much for who they are and what the character of a place is. Thank you for taking the time to explain that and for, once again, bringing that gentle scouring of issues that allow us viewers to get a proper look at places we've never seen before.
Always a delight when another Jago video drops. This is no exception, must say your commentary style of whit with a hint of sarcasm works wonderfully well and is refreshingly different to media clones. Please keep these coming, they are one of few positive things to come out of this current situation. Thank you.
Jago Hazzard, I lived in London the past three years and when I had to leave I did it with tears on my eyes, thanks to your videos I feel a little bit connected to the city I really loved! Thank you!
Given the place’s reputation I’ve never fancied venturing to that end of the tram line. This has inspired me to give it a look, at some unspecified point in the future!
I first went through New Addington in 1980 when there was a Green Line route from Crawley to Gravesend that did a "double run" from the site where Addington Village is now, up to Salcot Crescent, near the parade of shops and the New Addington tram terminus is now situated, then all the way back again!! It only lasted a couple of years. The trams hadn't even been thought of, let alone considered at that time!! It seemed strange at first to visit the place again affer all the tram infrastructure had been completed, quite a transformation, but it's been like that for 24 years now!
I love your channel. It lets me see aspacts of current and past London and surrounding area that I wouldn't see otherwise. You unintentionally have become a news source to the world about London life and transportation in areas surrounding train stations. Thank you for the work.
i love your dry wit. i also enjoy the peripheral historical, social and architectural stuff. im not actually a transport nerd, but im getting there by following you for the other reasons!
i think its good that you expanded on the train content to give some context,london is a very interesting place and its nice to get to see and hear about its everyday reality,especially for those of us out here in the antipodes..thumbs up and keep up the excellent content.thanks.
lived there in the early 2000 for couple of years. Very quiet eerie feeling in the evening. Lots of single moms, young people in hoodies and generally cold energy there
mate...New Addington...A sprawl of samey buildings and common folk and immigrants and chavs, and gypsy kids...Art, theatre, literature, innovation, refinement, culture doesn't tend to make it's way to New Addington and the locals aren't interested anyway in anything of refinement (which does not mean posh)...I grew up in East London, lived in West London and North London and Croydon...New Addington....that lot will only get it if they move away for a good while then see if they'd like to move back to such a featureless hole
I'm neither British nor do I live in London but I love the city and your videos are like a breath of fresh air now that we can't travel and discover more of London. Keep up the good work! Greetings from Greece!
I am always curious to learn about everything around the public transport net of cities! Makes your videos interesting and stand out from many others ❤👍🏻
At 0:33 is St. Mary the Blessed Virgin church. It’s so old (there’s records of a church on this site since 1080 AD) it’s listed in the Domesday Book. We held a funeral service in Aug. 2019 there for my best friend’s gran who lived up the hill from the church. She had lived in nearby Shirley since the mid 1950s. She was a legend. If you’re ever in the area please visit. It’s beautiful inside and full of history. You don’t have to be a churchgoer to appreciate its value.
Loved the mix of tram history and history of the neighbourhood. The architectural style of the homes, and high rise apartment(?) buildings remind me of similar structures found in various cities in Northern Utah.
Great vids very witty. I sometimes use the tram between Croydon and Harrington Road and have always thought what if I took the tram to New Addington, now I know what awaits. Cheers
Have fond memories of the Royal School of Church music who had their headquarters at Addington Palace. And yes when we went to the local swimming pool one boy was threatened by an older teenager.
Great video and good info. I always saw the name "New Addington" on trams and buses when I was in Croydon (many years ago) but I never visited that area neither knew what the area was about.
I am guessing here, but I would bet that for that tram driver, seeing you filming and then him assuming you are some sort of "tram spotter" was probably the most interesting thing that has happened to him while driving that tram. Also, you were actually on a train (or tram!)!!!
I love your videos in general, but this one here was especialy cool. A locals insights into his town is something you can never find in any travel guide and is a absurdly underrepresented kind of content. Keep it up!
I learned at school that the town of New Addington started with the first structure being the pub and the houses followed on from there. We used to go to New Addington swimming baths on our bikes because the future West Wickham baths was just a vacant plot of land with a sweet shop on the corner.
I went to John Ruskin College in 2004 - 2006 so used to get off the tram at Gravel Hill. I remember going to New Addington to a friend's house and remember the place feeling like it was the end of the earth! Definitely felt that isolation. So surprised to learn that the tram only opened up in 2000.
Now there's a nice idea for a video - 'A Day Out in the Country from London'. Back in the day, LT was quite good at producing posters to encourage leisure travel by bus and tube to enjoy some of the verdant bosky idylls around London. Epping Forest, Ongar, Ruislip, Perivale, Kew Gardens, Richmond, Chesham, Denham, Waltham Cross, Box Hill come to mind. How about a look at the posters on Google, and maybe even try one or two of the suggestions to cheer us all up when Spring arrives?
I only no of new Addington through talk of tramways , a good example of how rail links improve social living , yes a balance of green spaces , housing , trees hedges ,shops , road rail links all the planning department should have stuck to , I really do enjoy these short urban studies jago can't wait for more !!
Lived there in the 1960s as a schoolboy and in my first year at work. For me its biggest problem wasn't its people but its remoteness. It took me over an hour to get to my (private, scholarship boy) school in West Norwood and about the same to get to my first job in the Cabinet Office in Downing Street (the back entrance!). Mum had similar problems getting to her work as a laundry shop manageress. Eventually we managed a swap for a flat in Forest Hill and later to another right next to Forest Hill station. I still remember the monotony of that bus trip out through Addiscombe, up and over Gravel Hill, through the village down in the valley and then up the long, endless climb to the sprawling estate. We were in the green part, overlooking a large area of parkland and playing fields, but even so the outlook from our second floor flat was bleak and uninspiring even in Summer...with regard to its location, might the planned but never built Surrey Heights Light Railway have had something to do with its chosen location?
Thank you for a balanced account. It takes me back to my Croydon childhood. The isolation of New Addington may not have been entirely deliberate, but Addington village was, even in the '30s, both prosperous and influential, and the villagers would have wanted absolutely no transport links with the new estate. So what New Addington got was the 130 bus route; the only way in and the only way out. In the 1960s lots of Croydon residents would let 130s go by if there was another bus in the offing. Easy to ignore, you say. Spot on for the fellows (yes, and they were all men), who ran Croydon in those days. May I suggest a video on the life and times of Sir James Marshall (following some revealing research)?
not just the people running Croydon, I'm afraid. It's easy to ignore what's out of sight. Not just in England, either, France is notorious for building their HLMs (habitations à loyer modéré, or social housing, mostly synonymous with the same brutalist architecture as you can find in many social housing flats) somewhere over a hill, only connected with a slow and infrequent bus line, from the town centre. They are in effect dumps for all the undesirables for the city.
@@SBCBears because you need money for that. You can polish a turd, it stays a turd. You can clean your shack, it will stay a shack. And the best way to get money, is to go to work. But if you can't afford to go to work, you're quite literally stuck. You can't afford an apartment closer to schools, work or even a station? You'll have to to with social housing somewhere out of sight. You can't afford a car? You'll have to rely on a bus that runs once an hour. You're late because the bus didn't show up? You're fired and can start all over. Why yes, you should take initiative yourself, too, but it's not as if you can choose the cards you're dealt with, and some have really bad cards.
@@barvdw I could not agree more! Putting marginalised people up in high-rises is a way of putting them out of sight. Here in Toronto, the suburban high-rises are not nice places. Crime, drugs and prostitution plagues them and the lack of transit is one of the major reasons why that is. The corner of Jane st and Finch avenue in the northwestern suburbs of Toronto is not a good area, but a light rail line is being built to serve it.
@@barvdw The video mentioned a lack of food stores within the large development. It seems a ripe commercial opportunity for a small Aldi, for example. Also mentioned were "social problems" and "gangs". I wonder if those issues impeded investment in the community. No money would be required from the community for a chain store or independent grocer to set up shop there. Rich or poor, people eat.
I live in New Addington. The nickname is Little Siberia. When it snows, it snows; and hangs around. Honestly I grew up in Kentish Town and there's more bother there than here. The place is still a PITA to get to and from central London. Bus services all go around the Fieldway estate and take an age. The tram is good, but you are stuck with having to funnel through to East Croydon first to get anywhere. There is no direct bus to West Wickham. One would be handy.
Thank you. I grew up not too far away (Bromley) and went to school closer still (Hayes). In the 70s it was notorious for being, er, rough, but when I went there for the first time (early 2000s) it didn't look any worse than other suburban 'new towns' that I'd visited. It's certainly in stark contrast from nearby West Wickham / Coney Hall, which are the kind of places where my schoolfriends lived, who told me it was a rough place.
Good heavens! New Addington, I lived there in the late 60's early 70's (Redstart Close and went to Rowdown and Fairchilds schools)! Looks a bit drab now, but brought back memories though. Thanks.
As a spotty youth back in the early 70s a few of us would go to the pub were lidle is now, I think it was called the addington hotel. We always stayed close to the door so we could dive out when it kicked off . I remember seeing a sailor in full uniform standing at the bar enjoying a quiet drink getting glassed in the face by a drunk woman that was trying to get off with him, all pretty grim.
On a side-note, there are about 4 million council properties in the UK. £800 to paint a single two-storey building, so that comes to around £3.5 billion. Is that not a job that the UK government could manage to brighten up cities considerably and reduce the mud-brown environment? Government spending last year was £850 billion. Do people want to keep living in somewhere like 5:06 forever?
New Addington always had facilities including a swimming pool and a library. It also has an industrial area off the King Henry's Drive to the south-east. You're right that it doesn't have much other work except for retail and then only small shops. It was always largely a commuter village and had plenty of buses coming in and out and has always been very car-dependent but nearly everyone goes in and out by one road (the only other being the country lane leading to Biggin Hill airport). Weird place. The school has a bad reputation and kids who want better apply to schools outside, including in West Wickham.
