alhambra

Ais for: THE ALHAMBRA.After extensive digging aroundin the archives I thought I was

pretty well up on the lost pubs ofCroydon – well, central Croydon at least.So it came as a great shock to me whenthe editor of this great organ appearedin the pub one evening with a tatteredlocal history pamphlet, which containeda drawing of a rather fancy-looking

public house at the bottom of WellesleyRoad called the Alhambra.

After a bit of archive-rummaging Ifound the place in Wellesley Road – itstood where buses turn in to go to WestCroydon bus station – and one photo-graph: a shot of the place being demol-ished. More of that further on.

It was built during the great pubbuilding boom of the 1860s and 70s.The drawing in the local history bookletshows a building that had some mildlyflamboyant architectural features, possi-bly as a homage to its namesake, theAlhambra Palace in Spain.

It was initially a beerhouse; its appli-cation for a spirits license was refused in1873. For the next one hundred years itseemed to go about its trade. I have noanecdotal or official evidence of whatsort of boozer it was. It may have beenperfection, it may have been hell; but, asI always say, a pub is a pub is a pub.Except for ********** (censored forlegal reasons – the editor ). Then, in1975, at the tail end of the destructivemania for replacing solid Victorian archi-tecture with gimcrack brutalist officeblocks, an application was entered tobuild just such a block on the groundwhere the Alhambra stood. The processbecame a running story in the localpress, including the long-defunctCroydon Mid-Week Post.

Labour Councillor Bob Bishopopposed the redevelopment, prescientlyobserving that the plan would be“…probably the first in an avalanche ofpeople out to make a fortune at theexpense of the community.”

Here’s to old Bob – he’d seen the

future and it stunk!Of course, the pub was doomed. The

only picture in the official archive is thisone of it being bludgeoned to deathwith pickaxes early in 1978. The area isnow a banal, concrete ‘nowhere’. Whenpassing the spot, the pedestrian is urgedto pause awhile and think of the dangersof official planning folly and also to raisean imaginary toast to the long-lostAlhambra.

Pic: Croydon Local Studies Library

Find out more about Lost CroydonPubs by joining the Facebook group:

OLD CROYDON BOOZERS AND CLUBS(NOW DEMOLISHED OR CLOSED)