The best-connected place in south London: direct trains to two airports, Thameslink straight through the City without changing, and a tram network on the doorstep.
Inside The Croydon Apartment, in Croydon.
Croydon is a town in its own right rather than a suburb, and it has the transport to match. East Croydon sits on the Brighton Main Line with six platforms and three tram platforms, and it is one of the very few stations anywhere in London with direct trains to two airports: Gatwick to the south, Luton to the north via Thameslink.
That makes it unusually practical for a stay with somewhere to be. Thameslink runs straight through the middle of London without changing: London Blackfriars, City Thameslink, Farringdon and St Pancras International. The trams leave from immediately outside the station entrance and reach the residential south and west of the borough.
It is also older than its office towers suggest. Croydon Minster is the burial place of six Archbishops of Canterbury, the Elizabethan Whitgift Almshouses still stand at the corner of North End and George Street, and much of the medieval archbishops’ palace survives. For a short stay it suits anyone who wants space, parking and a fast route in, rather than a central London postcode.
Getting out
Brighton Main Line
East Croydon direct to Gatwick Airport and to Brighton, and north into central London
Thameslink
Through London without changing: Blackfriars, City Thameslink, Farringdon and St Pancras International, and on to Luton Airport
London Trams
The tram stop is immediately outside the main station entrance, for Wimbledon, Beckenham and New Addington
What is nearby
Croydon Minster
The parish church, and the burial place of six Archbishops of Canterbury
Whitgift Almshouses
Elizabethan almshouses founded by Archbishop John Whitgift, at North End and George Street
Surrey Street market
A working street market in the old town centre, on the hill below the High Street
Lloyd Park
Large open parkland on the eastern edge of the town, with its own tram stop
Fairfield Halls
The town’s concert hall and arts centre, opened in 1962
