Forest Hill: South Circular Road seen from the railway

Image: © Christopher Hilton Taken: 26 Nov 2011

A snatched shot from a moving Overground train. Crossing the South Circular is one thing to look out for here but a more unobtrusive thing to look out for is the line of nineteenth-century terraced houses at the back of the photograph: here, and along Devonshire Road which runs to the right off the South Circular Road, these houses follow the line of the former Croydon Canal. The canal, which always struggled financially, was bought by the railway company relatively early in the nineteenth century and much of its course lies under the track, but at various points contouring along the side of the hills caused it to swing off a direct course and thus away from the line of the later railway: this is one such point. (Betts Park in Anerley, which holds the only surviving watered stretch of the canal, is of course another.)

Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0