After the second world war the Wates Company, long established builders in the south of England, completed several housing developments around London, including the large Dulwich estate and planned the 120 acre Park Hill development in Croydon.  Begun in the 1960’s the area was to include a church, village hall, restaurant, shops and a new primary school in addition to the Archbishop Tennison Grammar School. Not all of those aims came to fruition but one which did was to make it a place for people to live in modern houses and flats in an environment of seclusion and spaciousness.

A principle was to keep traffic and parking away from housing. So every house and flat was provided with a garage either integrated with the house or accessible by service roads and with the overall road layout designed to discourage through traffic. Restrictive covenants were also put in place to ensure that the buildings were kept in a good condition and in harmony with their neighbours by not allowing any alteration to the original design.

Provision for generous  planting of trees and shrubs within the communal green areas surrounding the discrete small estates was made and having now achieved maturity what a marvellous asset it is.

Do you have any historic photographs of the estate that you would like to share on this website? If so, please let us know by using the Contact form.