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Surrey Street Pumping Station, Croydon

Former pumping stationsGothic Revival architecture in LondonGrade II listed buildings in the London Borough of CroydonInfrastructure completed in 1851Infrastructure completed in 1867
Infrastructure completed in 1877London water infrastructureStructures on the Heritage at Risk registerThames WaterTudor Revival architecture in EnglandWater supply pumping stations

Surrey Street Pumping Station is a Grade II listed pumphouse in Croydon, South London, England, that was built in four phases. It is the site of a well that "had been more or less public ever since the town existed". It was opened by the Archbishop of Canterbury on 11 December 1851, making Croydon one of the first towns to have a combined water and sewage system under the 1848 Public Health Act, and to Chadwick’s arterial-venous design. The water was pumped from the wells, up Park Hill to a cylindrical brick reservoir with a domed roof to provide a constant supply of fresh piped water. Prior to its opening, the inhabitants of Croydon used the river Wandle, streams and shallow wells, which were often contaminated by seepage from privies and cesspools. Parts of Norwood were served with water from the Lambeth Water Company, a private company established by an act of parliament in 1785 (25 Geo III cap LXXXIX).Soon after it opened, the pumping station was involved in a landmark legal case about the abstraction of water from wells. The opening coincided with a reduction of water in the river Wandle that had been predicted by the river's millers. They believed they had a strong case under riparian law that they should not be harmed by the abstraction. The Lords disagreed and determined on the 27th of July 1859 that "the course and direction of underground waters were considered too uncertain and too little known, to be the foundation of any (riparian) rights in them". Water levels in the river subsequently increased, suggesting the reason for the low levels in the river was a lack of rainfall. It is somewhat ironic that in 1912 Croydon objected to the abstraction of water at Purley by the East Surrey Water company for fear it would damage their supply.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Surrey Street Pumping Station, Croydon (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

Surrey Street Pumping Station, Croydon
Exchange Square, London Broad Green (London Borough of Croydon)

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N 51.3721 ° E -0.102 °
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Surrey Street Pumping Station

Exchange Square
CR0 1SL London, Broad Green (London Borough of Croydon)
England, United Kingdom
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Beanos
Beanos

Beanos was a second-hand record shop, once the largest in Europe, located in the South London suburb of Croydon. It was founded by musician David Lashmar in 1975 and continued to expand through three increasingly larger shops, ending up in an old printing works in Middle Street in the 1990s. After over thirty years of trading, Beanos faced the threat of closure in 2006, although the immediate threat was averted by concentrating the store's focus on rare vinyl records, rather than compact discs which were being undercut by large music chains and supermarkets. Lashmar also closed the top two floors as a cost-cutting measure. However, in November 2008 Lashmar announced that the store would have to close by the end of the year as sales had not picked up, and the shop closed in July 2009 after another dealer bought the stock.In January 2010, Lashmar reopened Beanos as STUFF marketplace, which officially closed on 30 April 2010 due to lack of business. In December 2010, Lashmar appeared in the BBC television series Turn Back Time: The High Street as a 1970s record shop owner trying to sell vinyl records to 21st-century customers.After the short lived STUFF venture, the site was then host to Beanies, a child-friendly cafe also offering play areas and workshops, for several years, before this too ceased operations. As of 2018 the building is now home to Project B, a venue for hire to host private events. Beanos provided 8,000 records for the 2009 film The Boat That Rocked and was the filming location for Lawrence Pearce's comedy film Mixed Up.