Little Road Addiscombe

A Memory of Croydon.

I moved to 11 Little Road when I was three. Opposite our little Victorian house was the playground, attended everyday by a lady who used to sit in her little hut and make tea. The road was a cul de sac, two rows of Victorian terraced houses, our semi detached 2 up 2 down house, and then a detached house at the top of the road. It must have been very old, thinking back the date it was built, probably around the 1700s. The road ran under Windmill Bridge and underneath were lock ups which the local green grocer used to house his horses that pulled his cart of veggies. Mr Boxall, I think, was his name. The playground had a large slide which, when the Queen's train passed through for the yearly races she attended, us kids would sit on and wave to the Royal train as it went through. She never did slow down and wave back! We had the biggest conker tree in the area, and we would hungrily collect the fallen conkers in the autumn, daring the children that came to the playground to pinch our brown shiny conkers. In the 1950s we still had gas light and I can remember the change to electric light. I can also remember of course when the yellow lines were being painted on the road so we couldn't just park our little cars anywhere any more. One gentleman who lived in one of the houses, we used to call him 'Uncle', would give me 3d pocket money whenever he saw me. I think he felt sorry for me as both my mum and dad worked from when I was about 7, so I spent a lot of hours alone. Then in 1967 the council bought the land, and the little houses were all knocked down and Little Road was no more. Now the site is a grey block of council flats, and all the memories have been wiped out. Little Road cannot be found on the web at all as if it didn't exist, but to us kids during the 1950s and 60s it was a little world all on its own. Does anybody out there have any photos of Little Road? I was known then as Anne Goddard, my bestest friends were Cassandra Jeal and Catherine Mccloughlan. Where are you now?
Anne Offor

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