The NUMBER 64 Route

Thornton Heath Pond to New Addington (Vulcan Way)

Friday November 8 2019

Well the last time we rode this I may have been closer in age to the route number than I am now but we and the Number 64 just keep going…  This time (we have been trying to reverse the direction we  journey  in case anyone cares) we met at Thornton Heath Station and rode down Brigstock Road to the disappointing Thornton Heath Pond – I have lived in South London for 40 years and I still peer hopefully at the dismal roundabout hoping for a patch of water…  Of course there was one here once and even an earlier heath but the post-war building boom that characterised Croydon meant the roads got wider and the pond area smaller until the water dried up so in 1955 it was covered over.  We tracked our 64 turning round and missed it at the bus stop but this is a very frequent service and the wait was negligible.  Being opposite the University Hospital Croydon (formerly the Mayday) there were plenty of passengers but upstairs was fairly empty.

We were interested to see the number of hotels along this stretch and not just small B&Bs – do they expect relatives of long term patients to stay?  It seems a bit distant to be a tourist hotel, but perhaps the prices make up for the distances from Central London.

The somewhat anonymous area between Thornton Heath and West Croydon has recently been reborn as the Broad Green Village, which needs as much imagination as the Thornton Heath Pond. 

To be positive this stretch is  improved since our original project when we were travelling during and after the 2011 riots.  Certainly there are quite a few new builds along the London Road including the Harris Invictus Academy which must have its entrance well hidden.

Croydon High Street is pedestrianised and therefore the buses must choose a different route through – for us it involved several sharp turns to get from West Croydon to East Croydon stations tracking off past Jury’s Inn and into a hinterland full of new and not quite completed blocks  – mainly residential we thought.  Croydon is already one of the most heavily populated boroughs and there is a BOX Park too…

Leaving high rise Croydon behind, the 64 heads up Park Hill which (for once) is an accurate description as there is both greenery and an incline, bordered by mainly older houses.  Croydon’s leaf blowers were in full spate today.

The bus then takes a right by a hotel calling itself (ironically perhaps) South Park and offering both Indian and Chinese ‘cuisine’ so hedging their bets boldly perhaps?

The next stretch of the route along Croham Valley (possibly a dry valley as I can find no evidence of a river running through it) proves to be scenic on a fine-ish autumn day – an older part of Croydon rich (in all its senses) in private schools and care homes whose owners often take over properties now too large for any one family to maintain.  One of these – Old Palace – is a private girls’ school but part of it was once the Archbishop of Canterbury’s summer residence, though Canterbury never struck me as that urban. Perhaps they wanted to be somewhere where you did not run into other keen eyed church folk??

The garden autumn colours were pleasing and a clump of bright Nerines caught our eyes – shame about the name though.

By the time we had been through Selsdon village,  all ready for Christmas with its decorations, and on past yet more golf courses and schools it was clear we were approaching the Addingtons old and newer. To the left  was the original village complete with pretty parish church  and as we went up the hill New Addington to the right, but first we had to divert slightly to the Tram Interchange, that form of transport being the quickest way in and out of the huge housing estate that is new Addington.  There were different phases of building ng with some homes going up just before the war but the bulk came in the Fifties to help house those displaced by Croydon’s many bombs, and with some afterthought dwellings later still.

This route takes care to reach all sections of New Addington enabling you to see that what is remarkable is what is missing – there are a few parades of shops, one or two community centres looking like afterthoughts but nowhere you can earn a living or do a job; even the trams which get you to East & West Croydon stations arrived quite late.  As Jo said, Milton Keynes did it better. Schools and health provision are a bit sparse.

We were a bit puzzled by signs for CALAT but this proves to be a resource for Adult Learning and Training .

The 64, which is so frequent we lost count of the number we saw going in the opposite direction, pushes on beyond the final Tram terminus to the very edge of the Green belt – we passed a couple of ‘ploughed fields’  - to Vulcan Way, which proves to be a rather desolate strip of industrial units including the ultimate, a vehicle pound to where untaxed or badly parked cars are towed. This may well have been the first sign of employment prospects but it felt very remote.

Needless to say we were the only passengers left on the bus and we were lucky enough to dash across the road and immediately board the little 130 as our getaway vehicle….

I believe New Addington was due to have some regeneration funding but perhaps it’s so vast that what was on offer had perforce been spread rather thinly – but we saw little change in the New Addington we had first visited nearly ten years ago, except possible enhanced public transport.  Still we had a stress free journey entirely within the borough of Croydon and had been able to enjoy some fine autumn colours.