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The original Christ Church was a flint-faced building of 1851-2, paid for by Archbishop Sumner. Due to structural problems it was closed in 1978 and, following a petition, approval to demolish the building was given in 1982. However, in 1983 the old church was listed and total demolition therefore not granted. The building was badly damaged by fire in 1985 and a new church retaining the undamaged portion at the western end was opened by the Bishop of Southwark in June 1991. There church has a garden with grass and flower border behind a flint wall to the road, with a few headstones in the shrubbery at the eastern boundary.
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The site was part of the large Coombe estate, including woods and commonland, privately owned until the mid C20th. Croydon Corporation then purchased Coombe Wood and Coombe Wood House, and 14 acres of woodland and ornamentatl garden were opened to the public in 1948. The gardens were laid out as a series of 'garden rooms', with a rock garden by an existing pond, and a terrace garden that was once a Fernery. Over the years the gardens have evolved, to include a rose garden, mixed borders and a winter garden of heathers, conifers and shrubs. Coombe Wood House, built in 1898, had a number of public uses, including a convalescent home for Croydon Hospital, a Children's Home, and is now a restaurant. The stableyard, built in a gravel pit and hidden from view of the house, is now the park café.
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Coulsdon Common includes ancient woodland, chalk grassland and remnants of heath, and has a central pond. Two Corporation of London coal posts mark the 1861 boundary of the London district for the purposes of the tax levied by the City on coal and wine brought into London. The tax, instigated in 1667 to pay for rebuilding after the Great Fire, was used for other purposes by the C19th, including payment for the Coulsdon Commons. A windmill or postmill was in operation on the common from 1777 -1898; its site is marked south of Stites Hall Road.
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Coulsdon Court, now a hotel known as Coulsdon Manor, was built in 1850 by 'Squire' Thomas Byron, who had gardens laid out by the house, divided from the parkland by a ha-ha. Walled kitchen gardens provided food and a grove of trees was planted to the north-east. His son Edmund inherited in 1862 and lived here until 1921. The next owners, the Cearn family, had the golf course built, later leased to Croydon Council as a public course. In 1981 the Council bought the house and surrounding golf course, and it was leased to hoteliers. A fitness club and tennis courts are now on the site of the kitchen gardens but remnants of its old walls exist, as do other earlier features such as part of the ha-ha and numerous mature trees.
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Coulsdon Memorial Ground was opened in 1921 as a public recreation ground, dedicated to Coulsdon men who fell in WWI. The war memorial is situated at the top of the site and takes the form of a portico with an inscription on the rear wall. A plaque was later added to commemorate those who died in WWII. The land had originally been part of Edmund Byron's Coulsdon Estate and was purchased by Coulsdon and Purley UDC in 1920, partly by public subscription. By 1940 recreational facilities included tennis courts, bowling green, putting green and toilets.
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Croham Hurst is an extensive woodland area with historical and natural interest. The bare summit at c.477 ft above sea level meant it was a safe place for early settlement, but it was later used for farming. The manor of Cronham (Croham) became the property of Archbishop Whitgift in the C18th but in the late C19th when Croham Hurst was a popular place to visit, few people realised it was private. In 1898 the Whitgift Governors planned to sell the lower slopes for development, and offered the higher part to Croydon Corporation. A spirited campaign against any development resulted in the whole of Croham Hurst being purchased by the Corporation in February 1901, and it continues to be a popular local beauty spot.
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Purley Way West is on the edge of a large open area that was the site of Croydon Airport; some of the former taxiing area remains visible. The first Croydon Aerodrome was formed from two earlier airfields, and has now largely been built over. A second complex was built to the east in 1926 and Croydon Airport was opened on 2 May 1928. It served as London's main civic international airport but finally closed in 1959. A number of the airport buildings remain to the north of Purley Way West and the airport land is now parkland, playing fields and the Roundshaw Estate in Sutton. In 1991 a memorial to the Battle of Britain was erected next to Purley Way.
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Duppas Hill was the first public recreation ground in Croydon, but the site had a very long history of use for sporting events. Tournaments were held here until 1286, when Lord William de Warenne was treacherously killed. Croydon Board of Health purchased the land from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in 1865. There was evidently a pavilion here by 1890 and the park had paths and perimeter trees. By 1932 a bandstand, toilets and drinking fountain had been added although now only the Victorian drinking fountain survives.
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The Fair Field was the site for Croydon's annual fair from at least early Tudor times. The 'Great Fair' was an important cattle fair as well as an occasion for popular entertainment, although this was discontinued after 1868 when rioting took place. Despite local protest, the Croydon Board of Health sold the Fair Field to Brighton Railway Company. The ground was also used for gravel extraction, and later as a car park until the 1960s. Croydon College of Technology and the Fairfield Halls opened in 1962 and Fairfield Gardens were laid out as ornamental gardens and ponds over an underground car park, designed in the modernist geometric style that was gaining popularity.
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Farthing Downs is a chalk downland ridge with fine views, popular with the public for well over 100 years although it has a much longer history dating back to the Stone Age. There is evidence of early cultivation by Celtic farmers in the Iron Age, and Saxon burial sites have been found. The tree belt between Farthing Downs and the lower fields was an ancient hedgerow. The nearby New Hill was purchased to protect the downs' immediate surroundings, and is more wooded. Farthing Downs is within the West Wickham and Coulsdon Commons group of sites managed by the Corporation of London.
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Foxley Wood and Sherwood Oaks are areas of woodland that were purchased by Coulsdon and Purley UDC as part of the Green Belt Scheme in the 1930s. There is a long history of woodland management here.
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Geoffrey Harris House was formerly called Coombe House, built after 1761 on the site of an older house. An C18th ice-house remains in the grounds. The property went through a number of owners and from 1833 it was let to various tenants. During the tenancy of Mr Hankley in c.1844 the upper lawn was converted from rough commonland to gardens and shrubberies. The next owner was Edward Lloyd (d.1863); his son Frank who later lived here from1892-1927 was an important local benefactor. Remnants of the former ornamental gardens and mature trees are visible today. The house has been put to different uses, including a convalescent home, school and now a residential care home, renamed in 1988 after a consultant at St Lawrence's Hospital in Caterham.