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🌦️ CROYDON DAILY WEATHER
🌧️ Today (Wednesday 21/10/2026): light rain early on, then cloudy, with heavier rain likely in the early afternoon before it clears in the evening. High of 11°C, low of 7°C, and gusts of up to 39mph this afternoon. Brolly Alert.
🌤️ Thursday 22/10/2026: the best day of the week, with sunny intervals and a high of 14°C. Heavy rain arrives late in the evening.
🌧️ Friday 23/10/2026: heavy rain through the day, a high of 13°C and gusts of up to 38mph. Check before you travel.
⚠️ Heads-up for Saturday 24/10/2026: more heavy rain, mainly from the afternoon, with a high of 16°C and gusts of up to 37mph. Sunday looks brighter, with sunny intervals and a high of 14°C.
Source: Met Office, Croydon forecast
🍎 THE HEARTBEAT: SURREY STREET MARKET TURNS 750
Surrey Street Market is celebrating 750 years, and it all goes back to 1276. That year, Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Kilwardby secured a royal charter from King Edward I for a weekly Friday market in Croydon, close to his palace. The town had fewer than 1,000 residents at the time, but the farms around it were busy, and the market gave them somewhere to trade crops, livestock and goods. The meat traders gave the area its early name, Butchers Row.
The market also changed the shape of the town. It pulled the centre of Croydon eastwards, up onto higher ground and away from the flood plain of the River Wandle. In 1343, Archbishop John de Stratford added a Saturday market, and that is the one that grew into the daily market still trading on Surrey Street today. It is thought to be among the oldest street markets still going in England.
There is plenty of Croydon family history here too. The writer John Ruskin said his grandmother ran the Old King's Head pub in the old market area, and the Lovett family kept a fruit and veg stall on Surrey Street for three generations.
So next time you pick up your fruit and veg on Surrey Street, you are shopping on the same patch of Croydon that has been trading since the 13th century. Got a favourite stall or a Surrey Street memory? Tell us and we may share it in a future issue.
📅 TODAY: WEDNESDAY 21/10/2026
🗳️ Croydon BID ballot closes today at 5pm. Town centre businesses are voting on whether Croydon BID continues for 2027 to 2032, with a proposed levy of 1.3% of rateable value. The ballot is open to the 460 businesses in the BID area with a rateable value of £40,000 or more. Source: Croydon BID
🏛️ Full Council meeting, 6:30pm tonight. Check the council's website for the agenda. Source: Croydon Council meeting calendar
🎨 The Big Make exhibition, 10am to 4pm, Croydon Urban Room, Whitgift Centre. Art made by Crisis staff, volunteers and members to support ending homelessness in Croydon. No booking needed for the exhibition, which is open Tuesday to Saturday until Friday 30/10/2026. Today's bookable workshop is Ceramics with Agata, 1pm to 3pm. Source: Croydon Urban Room
⚓ Croydon Sea Cadets: New Cadets Evening, AGM and Social, 7:15pm to 9:30pm, Arnhem House Barracks, 1 Mitcham Road CR0 3RU, free, with food provided. Open to prospective cadets and their families. Email [email protected] to say you are coming. Source: Croydon Sea Cadets
Times can change, so please check each organiser's listing before you travel.
🗓️ WEEK AHEAD: SAVE THE DATE
🗳️ Thursday 22/10/2026: the BID ballot count follows the close of voting. Source: Croydon BID
📑 SimpleBid: Bid to Win, Thursday 22/10/2026, 4:30pm to 6:30pm, Croydon Smile Hub, 159 London Road CR0 2RJ, free. A practical workshop on finding and applying for public sector contracts and grants, open to local businesses, charities, CICs and aspiring entrepreneurs. It runs every Thursday, and you can register free at SimpleBid. Source: SimpleBid
🎸 New Rose night: 50 Years of Punk Rock, Thursday 22/10/2026, 7:30pm, The Oval Tavern, 131 Oval Road. DJ Stuart Collins marks the anniversary of "New Rose" in aid of the Civic Mayor's charities, Legacy Youth Zone and Reaching Higher. Source: event poster supplied by Stuart Collins
🍵 Menopause Fun Palace: art making and tea party, Friday 23/10/2026, 2pm to 4:45pm, Turf Projects, upstairs in the Whitgift Centre, opposite the pipe organ, free. Come and see the mini art exhibition and make your own artistic response. Aimed at adults, with family welcome. Source: Creative Croydon CIC
🎉 Whitehorse Road community garden: 10-year celebration, Saturday 24/10/2026, 11am to 5pm, Whitehorse Road Recreation Ground, Boulogne Road entrance, Selhurst, free. A children's entertainer at 11am, a pet parade at 12pm, a colourful "dopamine dressing" walk at 12:30pm, live music from local talent all day, Black History Month songs from Roz Thornton at 2pm and a share-your-skills Fun Palace from 2pm to 4pm. Source: Creative Croydon CIC
🌳 The Sensible Garden reopening, Saturday 24/10/2026, 12pm to 2pm, South Norwood High Street SE25 6EF. A tidied-up garden named in honour of Captain Sensible. Source: Stuart Collins
🚋 Saturday 24/10/2026: the two-week tram closure begins. See The Daily Commute below.
🎶 All Roads Lead to Croydon: An Evening with Andy Baker, Thursday 29/10/2026, free but you must reserve a ticket. Billed as a Croydon community event about resilience, creativity, experience and remembrance. Check the Eventbrite listing for the time and venue. Source: Eventbrite
See the full events guide.
🧡 COMMUNITY WATCH
🎸 50 Years of Punk and a Sensible Garden, by Stuart Collins
Fifty years ago, a lad from Croydon, Captain Sensible, played bass on The Damned's "New Rose", released on 22 October 1976 and described by Stuart as the first ever punk rock single.
The anniversary has a local twist. A chance chat with South Norwood councillor Melanie Felten, about a campaign to get Captain Sensible the Freedom of the Borough, turned to how neglected a small garden named The Sensible Garden in his honour had become. Stuart volunteered to tidy it up and repair it, helped by friends Jason Leigh and Jim McAlister, local litter pickers and a kind donation of furniture from Veolia Croydon.
🌳 The Sensible Garden reopens on Saturday 24/10/2026, 12pm to 2pm, on South Norwood High Street SE25 6EF.
🎶 New Rose night: 50 Years of Punk Rock, A Celebration, Thursday 22/10/2026, 7:30pm, The Oval Tavern, 131 Oval Road, Croydon, with DJ Stuart Collins. It is a Civic Mayor charity fundraiser for Legacy Youth Zone and Reaching Higher.
Source: article submitted by Stuart Collins.
📸 A Croydon win at Wildlife Photographer of the Year. Seth Forestson, a former BRIT School pupil who works as a wildlife filmmaker at the BBC, has won the Urban Wildlife category at the Natural History Museum's Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards. His winning image shows a common water monitor lizard carrying a fish through a park in Bangkok, framed against the city skyline. He took it on a Google Pixel 7 Pro, making him the first category winner to win with a smartphone photo. His message to anyone with a similar dream is to get out there and shoot with whatever you have. Sources: Inside Croydon, Natural History Museum
🤝 Know a local group doing something good? Tell us about it and we may feature it in a future issue.
📰 NEWS AND NOTES
🚋 The Daily Commute: no trams east of East Croydon for two weeks. From Saturday 24/10/2026 to Friday 06/11/2026, there will be no trams between East Croydon and New Addington, Elmers End or Beckenham Junction. TfL is carrying out track renewal, including the Kent Gate Way road crossing, about 1,000 metres of track between Arena and Elmers End, and improvements at Sandilands tunnel. Works run 24 hours a day, replacement buses will be in place, and TfL says it is timing most of the work for half-term. Plan ahead with the TfL Go app or journey planner. Source: Inside Croydon
🚌 Fares going up on 01/11/2026. The adult bus and tram fare, including the Hopper, rises by 10p from £1.75 to £1.85, and the daily bus and tram cap goes up by 30p to £5.55. Concession fares rise by 5p. Tube and rail caps and Travelcards stay the same until March 2027. Sources: Inside Croydon, TfL bus and tram fares
💡 DID YOU KNOW?
The royal charter that created Croydon's market in 1276 came with a big advantage for the Archbishop: it stopped anyone setting up a rival market within a day's travel, roughly six or seven miles. The reason was money. A survey of the Archbishop's lands at the time showed Croydon brought in around £80 a year, far more than Wimbledon (£42) or Lambeth (£24). Source: Inside Croydon
🏫 SCHOOL CORNER AND PTA NOTICEBOARD
🎒 Half-term is nearly here. Half-term listings across London run from Saturday 24/10/2026 to Sunday 01/11/2026, so check your own school's dates. Source: Day Out With The Kids
🎃 MINULI Makers: My Little Pumpkin Patch, Thursday 29/10/2026, 11am, Centrale Shopping Centre, Upper Mall, £12, ages 2 to 10. Come in your Halloween costume and make your own spooky pumpkin patch. Spaces are limited, so book through Happity. Source: Happity
🚂 Little City Croydon x Trainmaster, Friday 30/10/2026, 9:30am to 11am, Our Lady of the Annunciation Church Hall, 147 Bingham Road CR0 7EN, £15. A first Croydon visit for Trainmaster South London, with train tracks and role play for little ones. Source: Little City Croydon
📌 PTA and school news: nothing has come in for today. If your school or PTA has a fair, fundraiser or notice to share, send it our way.
🏪 BUSINESS SHOUTOUT: POP UP TOP UP CIC
Pop Up Top Up CIC is a creative youth enterprise organisation that helps young people turn creativity into confidence, skills and real opportunities. Through workshops, pop-up markets, business challenges and hands-on experience in retail, marketing, sales and event delivery, they give young people a taste of running an enterprise.
They have programmes ready to roll out across community groups, schools, colleges, universities and Pupil Referral Units, and they are keen to hear from local businesses and organisations that could host a programme, collaborate on delivery, share their expertise or support young people to turn ideas into reality.
📸 Instagram: @popuptopupcic
If you run a Croydon business and could help the next generation of creative entrepreneurs, this is a good one to get in touch with.
Source: Pop Up Top Up CIC's Business Spotlight submission and website.
🏪 BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT: YOUR BUSINESS COULD BE NEXT
Every Pulse business spotlight is free. Tell us what you do, who you serve and how people can find you, and we will feature you in front of Croydon readers.
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Building a Stronger Croydon, Together
The Croydon Local Pulse Team