FAQs

Corinthian House, on the corner of Lansdowne Road and Sydenham Road, was designed by Richard Seifert and partners, the architect responsible for London’s famous Centre Point building and the NLA Tower, now known as No 1 Croydon. 

This 11-storey block was built in 1965 with Henry Grovenors as the partner in charge of its design and construction.  It’s a sculptural building, typical of Seifert’s 1960s work, dramatically formed, constructed in concrete and faced with bands of mosaic tiles. 

The most dramatic aspect of the design is the spectacular concrete cantilevered entrance canopy, springing out horizontally from beneath the first-floor level.  This feature, accompanied by the v-shaped concrete structural columns beneath the building, known as ‘piloti’, are examples of Seifert’s attempts to emulate the famous French architect Le Corbusier, with tall structures sitting raised above the ground.  These details created an iconic building that shows the significance of this period of architecture.

In the 1960s, Croydon High School for Girls also sold its site and moved to a new building outside the town centre. It was replaced by Apollo and Lunar House which were speculative developments by Harry Hyams, the reclusive property tycoon. Their names reflect the era’s NASA Apollo programme of missions to the Moon, and Hyams liked to give his high-rise buildings space-age names, such as Astronaut, Space, Orbit, Planet and Telstar House.

Apollo and Lunar are twin towers built between 1967 and 1970 by Denis Crump and Partners on either side of Sydenham Road. They are 20 storeys high, facing Wellesley Road, each with a hexagonal satellite extending out, mirror images of each other.

Lunar House is considerably larger than Apollo House. Its extra rear slab has a distinctive skeletal superstructure in precast concrete on its roof, which can be spotted from miles around.

After completion, the blocks stood empty for over a year before being occupied by government departments, notably the Home Office Immigration and Nationality Directorate (now known as UK Visas and Immigration) in Lunar House.

The iconic Whitgift Centre, known as one of the forerunners of the modern shopping experience, was built on the site of the Trinity School of John Whitgift, which had occupied 11 acres between the new office centre and North End since 1931. The original site of the school provided an oasis of playing fields in the centre of the town, surrounded by shops from its entrance in North End. However, in 1965, the school moved to its new location in Shirley, leasing the very sought-after land to developers, who demolished the nineteenth-century school building to construct the Whitgift Centre, which at the time was an eight-and-a-half million-pound office and shop development.  

The architects took advantage of the sloping site to build a two-level shopping precinct which could be entered naturally from North End and at the upper level from Wellesley Road. The two levels were connected by goods and passenger lifts and two large circular ramps, which are no longer in place. One feature that many people remember was The Forum pub in the middle of the centre, accessed from the ground floor by a moving walkway or ‘travelator’. Polygonal in shape,  it proved a welcome focus for many shoppers and local workers at lunchtime.  

The first shop to open was Boots on 17 October 1968, and the centre itself was officially opened in October 1970 by Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent. It was the largest covered shopping centre in London until Westfield opened in White City forty years later.  

Plans to upgrade the existing shopping areas, including redevelopment by Westfield and a new John Lewis store, haven’t materialised in recent years, but discussions to revitalise the shopping centre are still on track to encourage more footfall to the town centre.