Croydon Gardens

Built just a few years after the war, the Battle of Britain was obviously fresh in the minds of the developers who named all the streets in this Ernesettle estate after some of the RAF bases influential in the airborne conflict.

The airfield itself lay just fifteen miles south of the heart of London, and was initially used primarily as a civil airport, becoming London’s major airport in 1926. It was here that an estimated 100,000 people saw Charles Lindburgh’s Spirit of St. Louis land in the UK after concluding the first ever solo flight over the Atlantic in Paris. However constant fog and low cloud conditions, as well as bad radio signal, led to the airport being closed and taken over by the Royal Air force.

Croydon was an important base in the evacuation of Dunkirk, and was on the end of several German raids in August 1940, receiving considerable damage and many military and civilian deaths.

The name Croydon is thought to mean “valley where wild saffron grows”, though it has also been suggested to mean “chalk hill” and, somewhat appropriately, “valley frequented by crows.”

EH 21 october 2006