Ashburton Park

<More photos>

Addiscombe may well be able to claim Ashburton Park for its own, or failing that it is right next door. It is an ornamental park with a children's play area, tennis, netball and basketball courts, a bowling green and pavilion, and a pétanque terrain. Perhaps the most distinctive feature is the former Ashburton Library.

There are public toilets in the park but last time I looked (June 2007) I formed the opinion you'd have to be really desperate to use them as they are a disgrace. The children's play area is also getting rather too tatty and its location on the west side of the park between the footpath and the former library means it is rather hidden away from view and it feels rather closed in. I'd suggest it could usefully be moved and its present space used to provide a better setting for the old library.

Location

The park is bordered by the Lower Addiscombe Road, Spring Lane, Woodside tram stop and the tram line, and a footpath leading from Stroud Road to Lower Addiscombe Road. There is a small car park on the Tenterden Road entrance.

History

The park was originally the estate of a mansion built in 1788. The name changed over the years. It was Byculla House from 1855 and then from 1869 to 1878 it was Stroud Green House (and can be seen on the 1872 map under that name). In 1878 it became the property of Father Tooth and he added a chapel and convent to the original house. Father Tooth brough with him St Michael's Home for Boys, which was for 'orphan boys and others of the upper classes in every kind of distress'. He founded a sisterhood to look after the children and this lead to the house being known as The Convent (it even gets marked as such on the 1911 O.S. map and named that in a 1912 directory). He also treated alcoholics at the house.

Croydon Corporation bought the house and grounds by Compulsory Purchase Order in 1924 and most of the mansion was demolished soon after, a putting green being laid on the site (this has long gone). The only remaining part of the house was the c. 1878 extension and it was this that became Ashburton Library. This was relocated in 2006/7. I believe it may be intended to convert the building for use as a nursery school.