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Seymour Terrace, LONDON, SE20 8SA

Built along the alignment of the former Croydon Canal, whose remaining portion lies in Betts Park behind the photographer. When the houses were built the canal was already disused. The access road runs along the former towpath.

Built along the alignment of the former Croydon Canal, whose remaining portion lies in Betts Park over the railings. When the houses were built the canal was already disused. The access road runs along the former towpath.

Anerley Vestry Hall was built in 1878 for conduct of public business of the district, then part of the Borough of Lewisham. It became the Town Hall when Penge Urban District Council was formed in 1900. In 1965, Anerley became part of the new London Borough of Bromley. It now houses Anerley Library, a playgroup, and other amenity groups, and is rented out as a venue for small theatre / drama productions, dancing, and other social functions such as wedding receptions.

The Croydon Canal was built in the early nineteenth century, running from the Grand Surrey Canal north of the present New Cross Gate station, to a basin under the site of the present West Croydon station. As those details suggest, it was later bought by a railway company and much of its trackbed used by what became the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway's main line south. Where the canal swung off the straighter course of the railway it has largely been built over. Here in Anerley, however, the canal did an S-bend around some curves in the land whilst the later railway carved straight through them, and a short stretch of the canal survives a hundred yards or so off the railway line, converted to an ornamental lake in Betts Park. The only other surviving piece of canal infrastructure is its reservoir half a mile south-west of here, now South Norwood Lake and like this preserved by being in a park.

The brick memorial lost its plaque many years ago by the look of it. The notice by the informal shrine in the mid frame is a police poster appealing for witnesses to a fatal stabbing in 2017.

The Croydon Canal ran 9 miles from Croydon, via Forest Hill, to the Grand Surrey Canal at New Cross. It opened in 1809, and closed in 1836, making it the first canal to be formally abandoned by an Act of Parliament. This is the last remaining part of the canal.