The New Addington estate in 1946, showing the start of the Central Parade, and the early housing development bordering King Henry's Drive, Montacute Road and Gascoigne Road.
During
the early Thirties, the First National Housing Trust purchased 569 acres
of Fisher's Farm with the intention of erecting a Garden Village
bordering Lodge Lane, with 4,400 planned houses, plus shops, churches,
cinema and a village green. The driving force behind the Trust was its
chairman, Charles Boot, which explains why the earliest part of
New Addington is sometimes referred to as The Boot Estate.
The project started in July 1934, with the Mayor of Croydon
performing a turf-cutting ceremony. In 1939 the outbreak of war
suspended construction, after some 1,023 houses (642 occupied) and 23
shops (eight occupied) had been built. Only one of the proposed schools
- Overbury - and few of the shops were in operation at that time.
More.