The Lord Roberts Temperance Inn and War Memorial, Woodcote Village Green

Image: © Marathon Taken: 27 Mar 2013

The Webb Estate was built by William Webb from 1898. Webb was a local estate agent and spent his lifetime developing his Garden Estate idea. In 1903 a model village, Upper Woodcote Village, was laid out in the south-western corner of the Webb Estate. The four acre green formed the only open space on the estate. In 1921, William Webb transferred the land of the Green in perpetuity to Coulsdon & Purley Urban District Council. He stipulated that it was to be used as a Village Green or Rural Park for the benefit of the inhabitants of Purley and neighbourhood and as a memorial to those that had fallen in the Great War. The Lord Roberts Temperance Inn was located on the south-west corner of the Green and now provides a general store and post office. Webb also arranged for the provision of the Cornish Granite War Memorial opposite the Green as seen here. The memorial bears the names of all the inhabitants of the Urban District Council who did not return from that war. Since then the names of those from the Second World War have been added. The Lord Roberts Temperance Inn can be seen just behind the war memorial. See http://www.croydon.gov.uk/leisure/parksandopenspaces/parksatoz/woodcotevillage/wvghistory for more information.

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