An uproar of amazingness
Fish for supper? Fancy a surprising south London suburban stroll? Welcome to Thornton Heath.
The reason we went to Thornton Heath was to look at some art work at the station, of which more later, but having arrived by train it seemed churlish, and unlike Terroir, to go home after just viewing that mosaic on platform 1. So we climbed up to the High Street and spent a few hours exploring the wider suburban landscape. It’s quite an eyeful.
St Alban the Martyr’s Church
Building started in 1889 but contined in stages until 1939. It is listed grade II
Architects: William Bucknall & Sir Ninian Comper
But let’s start by going back a bit. In case you don’t know, and that may be quite a lot of you, Thornton Heath is in south London, just to the north of Croydon. One of the better known local landmarks is Thornton Heath Pond, not because you can picnic or feed the ducks there (you can’t) but because of the adjacent bus depot and the number of red London buses which carry ‘Thornton Heath Pond’ as their final destination. But it does sound delightfully rural, atmospheric and a worthy - if somewhat mythic - destination, just like the Purley Fountain, to the south of Croydon. And, just like the Purley Fountain, Thornton Heath Pond, is now the centre of a very busy roundabout.
In August 2018, the Croydon Advertiser asked the inevitable question, ‘Why is there no water at Thornton Heath Pond?’ (https://www.croydonadvertiser.co.uk/news/croydon-news/no-water-thornton-heath-pond-1939675). Part of the answer went as follows:
‘Centuries ago, before the busy roads were built, Thornton Heath actually was a heath. Acres of common land stretched across the area, and the ancient grazing land was used by Medieval farmers to feed their animals.
Their livestock could also take a drink at the watering-hole at the heart of the heath which would later become the eponymous Pond.
The area – now part of London's most populous borough – was once a rural and isolated spot.’
The London to Sussex Road (now the A23 London to Brighton road) also passed by the pond and is probably the reason the area became famous for highwaymen. An interesting Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Thornton_Heath) suggests that Dick Turpin was associated with the area (via a local aunt - families, eh?) and that a ‘plot of land at the Pond became known as Hangman's Acre. Immense gallows loomed on John Ogilby's Britannia maps of 1675, and were still present in a later edition in 1731.’ The account goes on to suggest that in the 17th and 18th centuries Thornton Heath was ‘a desolate valley with lonely farmsteads sheltering desperate outlaws, with the hangman's noose the only recognised authority.’
The other local activity of note is commemorated by Colliers Water Lane, a local street name which still exists, and whose origins were linked to the romantic sounding Great North Wood. Remember, however, that this area is culturally both the south of England and ‘south-of-the-river’, so that the Great North Wood didn’t even get to Watford, but stopped abruptly on the south bank of the River Thames. The Colliers were charcoal burners who, according to the Wikipedia article, burnt timber from the Norwood Hills, using cooling water from the adjacent Norbury Brook. The concept of ‘north’ must have had a deep psychological impact on Croydon and the south. Wikipedia continues, ‘Smoke and high prices made the Thornton Heath colliers unpopular. With their dark [presumably in the sense of grimy?] complexions, they were often portrayed in the popular imagination as the devil incarnate.’
Back to the Croydon Advertiser: ‘In the early 19 century the well-to-do started to build their grand houses along the London Road [or, as William Cobbett described them less politely, ‘stock-jobbers’ houses’] , and the village surrounding the pond began to attract tradesmen.
New tastes and wealthier citizens led to the one-time watering-hole being given an upgrade – formal railings were installed to circle the water-feature, which became the decorative heart of the area.’
What the Croydon Advertiser forgot to mention is that, prior to the 19th century ribbon development, the land surrounding Thornton Heath had been enclosed (in the 1790s), and had become a landscape of small fields, farms, woodlands and the occasional orchard; no doubt very bucolic but enclosure meant that the control of the land would now have been in the hands of a very small number of people.
With the development of the Surrey Iron Railway (Croydon to Wandsworth section) in 1803, and the Croydon Canal (Croydon to New Cross via Forest Hill), in 1809, both passing close to the south of Thornton Heath Pond, plus the existing importance of the London to Sussex road, probably made investment in the Thornton Heath Pond settlement an attractive proposition. Instead of agricultural improvements to his newly enclosed fields, a beneficiary of the enclosures, one Thomas Farley, ‘converted allotments of land and sold them as freehold property. As a result, by 1818, the hamlet around the Pond had become a considerable village containing 68 houses’ (Wikipedia). One suspects that it was not quite the windswept heath which the newspaper report implied.
The sign of the Thomas Farley Public House, High Street, Thornton Heath
The pub has closed but, perhaps appropriately, has been converted into residential accommodation.
But it was the Victorian railway boom which initiated the major conversion of Thornton Heath from urban fringe to full on south London suburbia. Where railway lines had not been routed through existing settlements, stations such as Thornton Heath (constructed in 1862) were built in the middle of farmland. Again, those who had done so well out of the enclosures, recognised that they were sitting on prime real estate and, within ten years, the area of housing around the station was larger and more significant than the road hub, almost a mile away, around the Pond.
The maps below tell their own story, with the railway stimulating residential development far more rapidly around the station than around the pond/village/highway combination.
Ordnance Survey 1894/95 Revision, showing both pond and railway station
Pond - blue circle Station - red circle
All map images 'Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland' https://maps.nls.uk/index.html
21st century Thornton Heath has a far more diverse demographic than the community which formed around the station in the late 18th century. But times are tough and, in 2010, most of the area between and around the station and the pond was recorded as lying in the more deprived end of the multiple deprivation spectrum. By 2015, the situation worsened but some improvement is shown in the 2019 statistics. Indeed Croydon Council has been working on the regeneration and improvement of the Thornton Heath environment since 2016 and around £3 million pounds has been invested, on shop and building front improvements, on artworks and on open space. The methodology behind this work deserves a blog in its own right but, for now, Terroir will take you on a tour of the delights of Thornton Heath and try to demonstrate why we so enjoyed our morning of sight seeing.
If you arrive by train, look out for two things.
The first, left, delivers a bit of a mixed message.
We are happy to be welcomed to Thornton Heath, but are wary of the anti-climbing device on the top of the wall!
This, right, is what we have actually come to see.
It is one of 14 such roundels currently adorning 11 stations around London.
The roundels are the work of Artyface, founded by Maud Milton in 1999, ‘to provide high quality, legacy public art’ with community involvement at its core. Her website is a delight (https://artyface.co.uk/wp/) and if you ever need cheering up, just take a browse.
The Station roundels project was developed out of a partnership with Arriva. Maud and team worked with 3,000 members of the relevant local communities to create the designs for the first 13 roundels which are all noth-of-the-river, mainly on the London Overground.
The most recent roundel has been devloped for Govia Trains and the Thornton Heath community. The detail is phenomonal and tells its own story.
Leaving the station for our ‘well we might as well take a look while we’re here’ expedition, we turn to the left to head east - away from the Pond. Turning around to take a photograph of the 1860s station building, we are gutted to find that it is encased in the warm embrace of extensive scaffolding. A bad start for the photographer.
Our next discovery was the clock tower and the Croydon stones. The clock tower, which also seems to feature as an iconic bus stop, in a similar manner to the Pond, was erected in 1900 to celebrate the new century. According to the Thornton Heath Chronicle, it suffered a minor arson attack last year but appeared, to Terroir, to be in good condition last Saturday. Neither were there any signs of the ‘street drinkers’ who the Chronical reported to have been plaguing the area.
Left: the Thorton Heath Clock Tower
Below: one of the Croydon Stones
After this sedate history lesson, things really began to hot up as we rounded the corner and moved onto the High Street. It was a blast - first the murals, then the building facades, and then the shops themsleves.
We turned off up a side road, to see what went on behind the behind the High Street and were taken aback - again - by the extraordinary contrast offered by the suburban streets. How could anywhere so close to that vibrant, brightly coloured and noisy high street be so quiet and so calm. We could hear the birds singing and we couldn’t hear the traffic. How is it done?
We walked up hill, discussing how we would like to live here, as long as there was a park or open space nearby. As if by magic, we came across the entrance to Grangewood Park. As we entered, the magic did rub off a little, however, as the steep gradient put paid to our day-dreams of spending our twilight years here. If any octogenarians were to make it their daily walk, they would certainly be very fit. Grangewood Park is a relic of a much older estate which was originally part of, guess what? the Great North Wood (https://www.thorntonheathchronicle.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Grangewood-Booklet-v6.pdf). Today the southern lodge is boarded up, the scattered trees look tired (and what is that tent doing in the second picture from the left?), the ground flora is trampled down and the soil looks heavily compacted. Spring seems a little far away, although a Monkey Puzzle tree and some sparkling new gym equipment do lift the spirits.
We zig-zagged back through more amazingly peaceful - and clean - streets, spotting our favourite bits of suburban architecture.
Back on the High Street, we had to face up to the big question. Why were there so many fish shops? We don’t mean fish and chip shops or fish restaurants, we mean wet fish shops, fishmongers, shops that sell fresh fish. Some just sold fish, some sold fish and a variety of groceries or vegetables. We wouldn’t have been surprised if the newsagents had had a fish counter. Why is Thornton Heath fish heaven? If you know please put a comment at the bottom of this blog.
Talking of which, we will postpone the rest of our voyage through Thornton Heath until next week, as there are one or two suprises still to come. But we will leave you with an image of that evening’s supper. It was by far the best fish we have had in ages.
Vin de Terroir
At the risk of making this look like a computer screen saver, in which country do you think this vineyard is?
When researching this week’s blog I came across this definition of Vins de Terroir:
“These are the wines where the winemaker strives to somehow capture and reflect in the wine the inherent qualities of the site from which it derives, as well as the characteristics of the vintage, and by extension the great complexity and intelligence of Nature itself.” https://www.bonnydoonvineyard.com/wine-quality-talking-the-elusive-vin-de-terroir-blues/
Replace ‘wine’ with ‘blog’ and add ‘Society’ to ‘Nature’ and you will understand what this blog is trying to achieve.
Terroir moved into its current habitat in the autumn of 1985. Not long after, on a summer walk in our new landscape, we climbed the scarp slope of the North Downs above Dorking. On the way up, the once extensive views to the south were hidden by frequent clumps of woodland and scrub – hawthorn, spindle, holly, dogwood, old man’s beard, hazel, field maple, oak, ash – which had grown up on former, species rich, chalk downland turf, following the cessation of traditional stock grazing in the 1940s and, later, a severe reduction in rabbit numbers caused by myxomatosis. On reaching a crest, with a potential view a few tantalising metres away, we were surprised to find a substantial deer fence crossing our path and a rather formidable, self-closing, deer proof gate permitting access to whatever lay beyond. This was not a traditional part of the 1980s downland experience.
We pushed through the gate, rounded a corner and looked down the slope below us. Sure, there was a view and for certain there was no woodland, but something totally unexpected was growing immediately below us in neat rows. Puzzled, we examined the numerous, identical small plants. Looking at each other, we mouthed the astonishing words, ‘grape vines!’. Someone had climbed this hill and planted – a vineyard! Today, of course, the Denbies vineyard above Dorking is one of the largest in the UK and also one of the largest in Europe. It is now a local ‘destination’ with gift shop, restaurant, guided tours and tastings. But back then, Surrey and vineyards were still relative strangers.
The history of wine in Britain is not a consistent one. Many people associate the modern explosion of English and Welsh wines (Scottish grape vineyards are still a rarity) with climate change and warmer temperatures, but I would suggest that other issues are also relevant. If I am wrong, I hope the specialist sommeliers, vintners and viticulturists amongst you will put me right.
A website called ‘The History of English Wines’ (sorry Wales) (http://www.english-wine.com/history.html) is helpful. This site, and other internet searches, suggest the following:
Iron Age – wines probably imported; maybe this indicates developing taste buds but perhaps a lack skill and/or technology
Roman invasions – everyone seems to agree that the Romans brought wine to the British Isles, but not all agree that they also introduced vineyards.
The Norman Conquest – documentary evidence suggests that vineyard technology didn’t necessarily come over with William the Conqueror, but was already here to meet him. On the other hand, many agree that the number of vineyards (and presumably consumption of wine) increased significantly post conquest. No surprises there, then. The Hull Domesday Project (http://www.domesdaybook.net/domesday-book/data-terminology/manors/vineyard) reports ‘vineyards recorded at 45 places in Domesday Book, 32 of these in Great Domesday, all in south-eastern England’. Interestingly, ‘The History of English Wines’ suggests that, ‘At the time of the compilation of the Domesday Survey in the late eleventh century, vineyards were recorded in 46 places in southern England, from East Anglia through to modern-day Somerset’. But whatever the geographical spread, the crown, the nobility and the monastic orders are felt to have had the monopoly.
Late Medieval to 17C – a period of significant decline. Theories include the acquisition (mid 12C) of wine producing Aquitaine by the English crown, worsening weather in England, and the dissolution of the monasteries.
17C to 19C – during this period of exploration (in Europe and across the globe) and of scientific development and enterprise, many of the nobility started to experiment with vines and, presumably, wine making. Famous names include Lord Salisbury at Hatfield House (17C), the Hon. Charles Hamilton at Painshill, in Surrey (18C), and the Marquess of Bute at Castell Coch near Cardiff (19C). I wonder which was more important, the kudos of a vineyard, the quality of the wine or, in the case of Castell Coch, the revenue potential?
1920 to 1950 – this seems to have been a bit of a dry patch.
1950s to present day – a quiet revolution. Huge steps forward in the science of viticulture seem to have enabled the harnessing of English soils, topography and climate to great effect. Success isn’t guaranteed, of course, and poor scientific decision making, bad weather, disease and lack of a sustainable approach still create real risks. On the other hand, cultural tastes have changed, with huge increases in wine consumption. In our childhoods, Terroir only ever saw wine at Christmas; now we would drink it every day, if it wasn’t for a ‘healthy’ respect for our livers. Agricultural/horticultural economics and the need for diversification have also, I suspect, promoted the spread of vineyards. Improved business acumen and financial management may well have played a part, too, although I think the delightful quote from ‘The History of English Wines’ is probably also very appropriate: ‘the best way to get a small fortune is to have a large fortune and buy an English vineyard’.
So what impact has the wine industry had on our landscapes, in terms of vineyards? How many are there? Estimates for England and Wales have proved hard to pin down but well over 700 in 2019 seems a safe bet, with over 60% of the area located in south east England. Wales, with around 30 vineyards, has 1.5% of total area but the highest predicted level of expansion. How interesting. https://www.winegb.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Survey-Report-2020-FULL-FINAL.pdf So far, I’ve found no reliable figures for value of production (but probably well over a £100 million) nor for the impact of leaving the EU.
So my next question (thanks to lockdown restrictions), is what did the Romans and Normans ever do for the Surrey wine landscape? I will leave it up to you to decide what the Surrey terroir did for the taste of Surrey wine.
As I’m sure many of you have guessed, the picture at the top of this blog is of the Denbies Estate. Thomas Cubitt, the builder/architect who changed the face of significant areas of London, bought the estate in 1850, demolished the Georgian house (too cramped), built his own Victorian mansion and planted a great many trees. Sadly he had little time to enjoy it and the estate passed to his sons when Cubitt died in 1856. Following use of the house as a troop billet in WWII, there were insufficient funds to repair and restore, and the mansion was demolished in the early 1950s. The White family purchased the estate in 1984 and planted a great many vines.
Seen from certain angles, and without the obviously ‘Southern’ train, one might be forgiven for assuming the landscape below was part of a wine region in Germany or France. The serried ranks of summer foliage, autumn grape clusters and bare stems in winter is a familiar site at vineyards the world over. By European standards, Denbies is large, particularly as it is contained within a single estate. And for Surrey, a large vineyard offers a completely new landscape.
Personally, Terroir feels that retention of an, albeit geometric, field pattern, reinforced by the rhythm of the parallel support structures (winter) and vines (summer), which flow down the slope of the Downs, provides a large scale, seasonal drama which complements the topography and surrounding landscape. The details are fascinating, however. Viewed across the rows, rather than down the vine ‘allées’, the large leaves provide a very different but not unpleasant, ruffled, texture, totally unlike the pasture, woodland or even arable landscapes elsewhere in the county. Tell us if you disagree, but at least this is a living, viable (one hopes) and rural landscape, which provides access and enjoyment to a great many people, not to mention a modicum of employment.
Terroir also visited two other east Surrey Vineyards. What a contrast! Here is a much more traditional pattern of small vine growing units, which appear to be more craft based and hand worked. Again the geometry provides an interesting contrast to the local Surrey Hills topography (Godstone Vineyard) and local industry, commerce and proximity to London (the Iron Railway Vineyard). The Iron Railway Vineyard is sandwiched between the route of the early 19C Surrey Iron Railway, and the A23 London to Brighton Road. The ‘Railway’ was a horse-drawn ‘plateway’ (so technically not a ‘rail’way at all) which carried goods such as coal, building materials, and agricultural supplies. The original section linked Wandsworth and Croydon and was then extended to Merstham in 1805. It lasted until 1838, but ironically it became unviable after the opening of a canal, in 1809, between Croydon and London. Terroir felt that both vineyards were a quirky but positive addition to the local landscape, although both were blighted by the noise of the A23 or the M23. Sadly, another northern Surrey phenomenon.
Godstone Vineyard
The Iron Railway Vineyard
But to end on an upbeat note: thanks to all who contributed to Terroir’s landscape lexicon, initiated in last week’s post. I particularly liked the Treorchy word for a gennel or lane: ‘gwli’ (sent via Instagram @terroirlandscape). Unfortunately, as most of Terroir’s Welsh roots are from the north, we are still a little unsure of the pronunciation! Anybody from Treorchy out there?
The Welsh for vineyard is ‘gwinllan’ ie wine yard or wine space, which makes perfect sense. Terroir is now interested in the use of ‘yard’ for both grapes (as in vineyard) and, in some areas, for hops (as in hop yard). As far as we know hop yard is used in Herefordshire and the southern Marches, while ‘hop garden’ is the appropriate word in Kent. Any contributions on that one too?