Addiscombe is an

area Area is the quantity that expresses the extent of a region on the plane or on a curved surface. The area of a plane region or ''plane area'' refers to the area of a shape or planar lamina, while '' surface area'' refers to the area of an op ...

of south

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, England, within the

London Borough of Croydon The London Borough of Croydon () is a London borough in south London, part of Outer London. It covers an area of . It is the southernmost borough of London. At its centre is the historic town of Croydon from which the borough takes its name; ...

. It is located south of

Charing Cross Charing Cross ( ) is a junction in Westminster, London, England, where six routes meet. Clockwise from north these are: the east side of Trafalgar Square leading to St Martin's Place and then Charing Cross Road; the Strand leading to the City ...

, and is situated north of Coombe and Selsdon, east of

Croydon Croydon is a large town in south London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a local government district of Greater London. It is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater London, with an exten ...

town centre, south of

Woodside Woodside may refer to: Places and buildings Australia * Woodside, South Australia, a town * Woodside, Victoria, a town Canada * Woodside National Historic Site, the boyhood home of William Lyon Mackenzie King *Woodside, Nova Scotia, a neighbo ...

, and west of Shirley.

Etymology

Addiscombe as a place name is thought to be

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo-Saxons happened wit ...

in origin, meaning "Eadda or Æddi's estate", from an Anglo-Saxon personal name, and the word ''camp'', meaning an enclosed area in

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th ...

. The same Anglo-Saxon land-owner may have given his name to Addington, around two miles to the south.Willey, Russ. ''Chambers London Gazetteer'', p 4

History

First mentioned in the 13th century, Addiscombe formed part of Croydon Manor, and was known as enclosed land belonging to Eadda. The area was a rural and heavily wooded area for much of its history. Its main industries were farming and brick-making, clay deposits at

providing the raw materials for the latter. During the

Tudor period The Tudor period occurred between 1485 and 1603 in England and Wales and includes the Elizabethan period during the reign of Elizabeth I until 1603. The Tudor period coincides with the dynasty of the House of Tudor in England that began wit ...

, Addiscombe was a large country estate and the seat of the Heron family.Thorne, James. Handbook to the Environs of London: Alphabetically Arranged, Containing an Account of Every Town and Village, and of All Places of Interest, Within a Circle of Twenty Miles Round London. United Kingdom, J. Murray, 1876. Sir Nicholas Heron died there in 1568 and was interred at his family's chapel at

Croydon Minster Croydon Minster is the parish and civic church of the London Borough of Croydon. There are currently more than 35 churches in the borough, with Croydon Minster being the most prominent. It is Grade I listed. Six Archbishops of Canterbury are b ...

. The estate passed through several owners until 1650 when it was sold to Sir Purbeck Temple, a member of the

Privy Council A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a state, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the mo ...

in the time of Charles II. After the death of Sir Purbeck in 1695 and his wife Dame Sarah Temple in 1700, the estate passed to Dame Sarah's nephew, William Draper, who was married to the daughter of the famous diarist,

John Evelyn John Evelyn (31 October 162027 February 1706) was an English writer, landowner, gardener, courtier and minor government official, who is now best known as a diarist. He was a founding Fellow of the Royal Society. John Evelyn's diary, or m ...

. When Draper died in 1718, he left his estate to his son of the same name and it then passed to his nephew, Charles Clark.

Addiscombe Place

In 1703, Addiscombe Place was built for William Draper to Sir John Vanbrugh's design. The house was built on a site which is now the corner of Outram Road and Mulberry Lane and became known as one of three great houses in Addiscombe, the others being 'Ashburton House' and 'Stroud Green House'. It replaced the

Elizabethan The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personific ...

mansion built by Thomas Heron in 1516. John Tunstall, a courtier of

Anne of Denmark Anne of Denmark (; 12 December 1574 – 2 March 1619) was the wife of King James VI and I; as such, she was Queen of Scotland from their marriage on 20 August 1589 and Queen of England and Ireland from the union of the Scottish and Eng ...

, bought Heron's house and had a noted flower garden. John Evelyn recorded in his ''

Diary A diary is a written or audiovisual record with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. Diaries have traditionally been handwritten but are now also often digital. A personal ...

'', "I went to Adscomb on 11 July 1703 to see my son-in-law’s new house. It has excellent brickwork and

Portland stone Portland stone is a limestone from the Tithonian stage of the Jurassic period quarried on the Isle of Portland, Dorset. The quarries are cut in beds of white-grey limestone separated by chert beds. It has been used extensively as a building ...

features, that I pronounced it good solid architecture, and one of the very best gentlemen's houses in Surrey."Thorne, James. Handbook to the Environs of London: Alphabetically Arranged, Containing an Account of Every Town and Village, and of All Places of Interest, Within a Circle of Twenty Miles Round London. United Kingdom, J. Murray, 1876. Distinguished guests who stayed at the mansion include

George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...

William Pitt the Elder William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, (15 November 170811 May 1778) was a British statesman of the Whig group who served as Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1766 to 1768. Historians call him Chatham or William Pitt the Elder to distinguish ...

and

Peter the Great Peter I ( – ), most commonly known as Peter the Great,) or Pyotr Alekséyevich ( rus, Пётр Алексе́евич, p=ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ, , group=pron was a Russian monarch who ruled the Tsardom of Russia from t ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

. Peter the Great was reputed to have planted a cedar tree in Mulberry Lane to record his visit. During the 18th century Addiscombe Place was successively the home to The Lord Talbot, The Lord Grantham and lastly The Earl of Liverpool, who died there in 1808.

Addiscombe Military Seminary

In 1809, Emelius Ratcliffe sold Addiscombe Place to the

British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...

for £15,500, whereupon it became a military academy known as the

Addiscombe Military Seminary The East India Company Military Seminary was a British military academy at Addiscombe, Surrey, in what is now the London Borough of Croydon. It opened in 1809 and closed in 1861. Its purpose was to train young officers to serve in the East India ...

. Cadets were trained as officers for one of the Company's three

Presidency Armies The presidency armies were the armies of the three presidencies of the East India Company's rule in India, later the forces of the British Crown in India, composed primarily of Indian sepoys. The presidency armies were named after the presiden ...

. Its counterpart,

East India Company College The East India Company College, or East India College, was an educational establishment situated at Hailey, Hertfordshire, nineteen miles north of London, founded in 1806 to train "writers" (administrators) for the Honourable East India Company ( ...

in Hertfordshire, trained the Company's administrators. The Indian Mutiny of 1857 led to strong criticism of the Company, and in 1858 it was nationalised by the British government. The military seminary was closed in 1861 and the remaining cadets transferred to the

Royal Military College, Sandhurst The Royal Military College (RMC), founded in 1801 and established in 1802 at Great Marlow and High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, England, but moved in October 1812 to Sandhurst, Berkshire, was a British Army military academy for training infant ...

. In 1863, the seminary buildings were sold for £33,600 to developers who razed most of them to the ground. Five parallel roads were laid out on the site, to the south of the former college site – Outram, Havelock, Elgin, Clyde and Canning Roads. They were all named after individuals who were prominent in either the military or civil governance of

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

namely; Sir James Outram, Bt, Sir Henry Havelock, The Earl of Elgin, The Lord Clyde and The Earl Canning. All that survives of the Seminary itself are two buildings called 'Ashleigh' and 'India', on the corner of Clyde Road and Addiscombe Road, and a former gymnasium on Havelock Road, now private apartments.

Suburban growth

St Mary Magdalene, Addiscombe - geograph

With the advent of the railways in the 1830s, Cherry Orchard Road linking Addiscombe with Croydon ceased to be a quiet rural lane and railway workers' cottages sprang up, many with the still-visible date of 1838. However it was not until 1858 and the sale of the college, that significant urbanisation occurred. There was formerly a small chapel attached to Addiscombe Military Seminary and to this, cadets paraded each morning and evening for a service conducted by the chaplain. On Sundays, cadets went down to the Parish Church in Croydon. By 1827, it became clear that Croydon Parish Church was too far away to minister to the college needs and St James' Parish Church was built and consecrated on 31 January 1829. The population of Addiscombe at this time was about 1,000. In 1870, the church of St Paul's (built by

Edward Buckton Lamb Edward Buckton Lamb (1806–1869) was a British architect who exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1824. Lamb was labelled a 'Rogue Gothic Revivalist', and his designs were roundly criticised for breaking with convention, especially by '' The E ...

) was opened and then rededicated in 1874 to St Mary Magdalene. The parish of Addiscombe was formed in 1879. In the 1890s, the Ashburton Estate was gradually sold for redevelopment, and Ashburton House, which had previously hosted literary figures such as

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his ...

Thomas Carlyle Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher. A leading writer of the Victorian era, he exerted a profound influence on 19th-century art, literature and philosophy. Born in Ecclefechan, ...

and

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator. His original works include "Paul Revere's Ride", ''The Song of Hiawatha'', and '' Evangeline''. He was the first American to completely trans ...

, was demolished in 1910.

Modern Addiscombe

Much of the land remaining in the area after the initial Victorian-era had been infilled with smaller housing developments by the 1930s.

Addiscombe railway station Addiscombe railway station was a terminus to the east of central Croydon, on Lower Addiscombe Road between Hastings Road and Grant Road. The East India Way housing development stands on the site. History Opened by the Mid-Kent Railway, it ...

closed in the late 1990s and was replaced by housing. Since early 2006 several parts of Addiscombe have been in the process of extensive regeneration, notably the addition of housing to the site of the former Black Horse Pub and the demolition of former Church Halls and a small garden centre in Bingham Road allowing a new Church Hall and community complex to be built and providing luxury retirement apartments on adjoining land. The area contains a number of parks and green spaces, notably

Ashburton Park Ashburton Park is a park located in Woodside, in the London Borough of Croydon, and takes its name from nearby Ashburton. The park is located close to Woodside tram stop, where Tramlink services the park. It is on the junction of Lower Addisco ...

and

Addiscombe Recreation Ground Addiscombe Recreation Ground, commonly known as Bingham Park, is a park situated in Addiscombe, London. The park is managed by London Borough of Croydon. Addiscombe tram stop is located just next to the recreation ground and is served by Tramlink ...

. The main shopping area is situated along Lower Addiscombe Road, containing a variety of shops, restaurants and pubs.

Sport

* Addiscombe Hockey Club, Field Hockey Club based in Addiscombe * Addiscombe Cricket Club est. 1866 * Addiscombe Cycling Club est. 1929

Transport

The area is currently served by four

Tramlink London Trams, previously Tramlink and Croydon Tramlink, is a light rail tram system serving Croydon and surrounding areas in South London, England. It began operation in 2000, the first tram system in the London region since 1952. It is manage ...

stations - Lebanon Road, Sandilands, Addiscombe and Blackhorse Lane. Sandilands was the site of a serious

derailment In rail transport, a derailment occurs when a rail vehicle such as a train comes off its rails. Although many derailments are minor, all result in temporary disruption of the proper operation of the railway system and they are a potentially ...

in 2016 which resulted in seven deaths.

, located about circa 500 metres west of Addiscombe's main shopping parade, closed in 1997 following the withdrawal of services from

Elmers End Elmers End is an area of south-east London, England, within the London Borough of Bromley, Greater London and formerly part of the historic county of Kent. It is located south of Beckenham, west of Eden Park, north of Monks Orchard and east of A ...

and was then demolished, being replaced by housing. Part of the old track between Woodside and Addiscombe railway stations is now

Addiscombe Railway Park Addiscombe Railway Park, also known as the Addiscombe Linear Park, is a park in Addiscombe, South London, managed by the London Borough of Croydon. The first section of the park was opened on 26 May 2007, with the second stage opened on 15 Ma ...

and part, the former Station area, has been redeveloped for housing as East India Way. Bingham Road station also formerly served the area; it was located roughly where Addiscombe tram stop now is, before closing in 1983. The former rail station featured in the opening scenes of the 1961

Tony Hancock Anthony John Hancock (12 May 1924 – 25 June 1968) was an English comedian and actor. High-profile during the 1950s and early 1960s, he had a major success with his BBC series ''Hancock's Half Hour'', first broadcast on radio from 1954, ...

film '' The Rebel''. The nearest train station is now

East Croydon East Croydon is a railway station and tram stop in Croydon, Greater London, England, and is located in Travelcard Zone 5. At from , it is one of the busiest non-terminal stations in London, and in the United Kingdom as a whole. It is one of th ...

Notable people

* Frederick George Creed (1871-1957), electrical engineer and an inventor of the

teleprinter A teleprinter (teletypewriter, teletype or TTY) is an electromechanical device that can be used to send and receive typed messages through various communications channels, in both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint configurations. Init ...

, who lived at 20 Outram Road where an

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

Blue Plaque A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving as a historical marker. The term ...

commemorates him. *

R. F. Delderfield Ronald Frederick Delderfield (12 February 1912 – 24 June 1972) was an English novelist and dramatist, some of whose works have been adapted for television and film. Biography Childhood in London and Surrey Ronald Frederick Delderfield ...

(1912–1972), writer & dramatist lived at 22 Ashburton Avenue, Addiscombe from 1918 to 1923 (commemorated with a plaque). His "Avenue" series is based on his life in Addiscombe & Shirley Park, and many of his works were adapted for television. * Matthew Fisher, organist of Procol Harum, was born in Addiscombe. *

D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English writer, novelist, poet and essayist. His works reflect on modernity, industrialization, sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity and instinct. His best-k ...

(1885–1930), author, lived at 12 Colworth Road, Addiscombe from 1908 to 1912 whilst teaching at Davidson Road School; the house commemorates him with a plaque. *

Kate Moss Katherine Ann Moss (born 16 January 1974) is a British model. Arriving at the end of the "supermodel era", Moss rose to fame in the early 1990s as part of the heroin chic fashion trend. Her collaborations with Calvin Klein brought her to fas ...

, model, grew up in Addiscombe. * Paul Nihill, Olympic medallist who won a silver medal at the

1964 Tokyo Olympics The , officially the and commonly known as Tokyo 1964 ( ja, 東京1964), were an international multi-sport event held from 10 to 24 October 1964 in Tokyo, Japan. Tokyo had been awarded the organization of the 1940 Summer Olympics, but this h ...

for the 50 km walk; Nihill Place is named for him. * David Prowse (1 July 1935 - 28 November 2020) actor who played Darth Vader lived in Addiscombe. * William Harris Rule (1802–1890), British Methodist missionary and writer, died in Addiscombe. * Betty Westgate MBE (1919-2000, founder of

Breast Cancer Care Breast Cancer Care is the only specialist UK-wide charity in the UK providing care, support and information to anyone affected by breast cancer. The charity's headquarters are in London, with additional offices in Sheffield, Cardiff, and Glasgow. ...

, lived at 1 Colworth Road (commemorated with a plaque).

Gallery

File:Our Lady of the Annunciation Church, Addiscombe - geograph.org.uk - 1192517.jpg, Our Lady of the Annunciation RC Church, Bingham Road, Addiscombe File:Addiscombe_shops.jpg, Lower Addiscombe Road shopping parade, looking east from the tram stop File:Sandilands_crash_memorial.jpg, Memorial to the victims of the Sandilands tram crash File:Addiscombe_Farm_Cottage.jpg, A 17th century farm cottage on Addiscombe Road, listed at grade II File:Ashleigh Addiscombe Road.JPG, Ashleigh House, one of the few remnants of the formerly extensive Military Seminary File:Oval Tavern, Croydon, CR0 (6924846420).jpg, The Oval Tavern pub, Oval Road

References

External links

ASPRA
Addiscombe and Shirley Park Residents' Association
H.O.M.E.
Residents' Association
Canning and Clyde Road
Residents' Association {{LB Croydon Districts of the London Borough of Croydon Areas of London District centres of London