Parks and playgrounds directory

Location

Woodside, Woodside Green. The Tram service for the park stops at Woodside - Route 1/2.

Area

4.74 acres 1.92 hectares.

Facilities

• Village Green

History

One of the earliest records of Woodside Green is in an indenture of 1662 which mentions "land lying up on a green called Woodside Green".  The Croydon Inclosure Map of 1800 shows an area " Woodside Green".   In 1870, an agent of the Ecclesiastical Commissioner instructed builders to dig out the ground plan of a church at the north eastern end of the land.  

A local resident saw this as an invasion of a public open space and therefore engaged workmen to backfill the foundations as quickly as they were dug.  The Commissioners threatened legal action but eventually the matter was compromised and a site for the proposed church was found elsewhere.  

In 1871 a grant of copyhold estate in Woodside was made at the general court baron of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to the Croydon Local Board of Health upon condition that it should be appropriated by the Board:‐   "to be forever kept as an open space and used as, and for, a place of recreation for the use of inhabitants of the parish of Croydon and of the neighbourhood and for no other purpose". Four months later, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, under the authority of an Order of Council, conveyed to the Local Board the freehold of the land "freed from all incidents whatsoever of copyhold or customary tenure to be held and used for the purpose of public walks, recreation or pleasure grounds only".  

The land was held and used by the Local Board of Health and its successors ever since.   In 1888 the Borough of Croydon acquired Poplar Farm which was adjacent to the Green and in time part of the farm was included in the grounds of the green.  

Around the Green are large mature Plane trees and beside the roadside kerb is a low fence.  A number of rustic benches have been placed under the trees and beside the junction in the middle of the green is a stone trough which was provided for cattle and horses travelling along the road.  Although the trough is no longer used for watering livestock it still forms a feature on the green.