Surprising facts about Croydon

10 surprising facts…

1.Croydon is home to London’s fastest growing tech cluster.

2.Croydon was the first area outside central London to use postcodes.

3.London Croydon Airport was the UK’s first international airport. Celebrities including Charlie Chaplin, John F Kennedy and Rita Hayworth travelled through, Winston Churchill took flying lessons there and Amy Johnson took off from Croydon in May 1930 and became the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia. The airport, now grade II listed, has the world’s oldest air traffic control tower.

4.Films shot in Croydon include The Da Vinci Code, Batman – The Dark Knight Rises, Iron Man 3 and 28 Days Later. St George’s Walk was also the set for an upcoming episode of Netflix’s popular TV show, Black Mirror, filmed in Spring 2018.

5.If Croydon were a city it would be the 8th largest in the UK.

6.Croydon has 84,000 young people under the age of 15, the largest number of any borough.

7.Famous Croydonians include film director David Lean (Brief Encounter, Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago), model Kate Moss, singer Kirsty MacColl, TV stars Noel Fielding and Sue Perkins and grime star Stormzy.

8.East Croydon Station is the busiest in London outside Zone 1.

9.Croydon has London’s only tram network and transports over 29 million people each year.

10.Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of Sherlock Holmes, lived in Croydon.