The Selsdon Residents' Association fair is in Selsdon Wood from noon to 4pm on Sunday 6 September. Guided walk at 1pm, singing at 2pm, Rotary games at 2 and 3.

The Selsdon Community Fair returns to Selsdon Wood this Sunday, 6 September, from noon to 4pm.

It is organised by the Selsdon Residents’ Association and held at the Old Farleigh Road entrance to the wood. The SRA’s own poster describes “the usual wide selection of stalls including crafts and foodstuffs” (Selsdon Residents’ Association).

The programme

Four things are timed. Everything else runs across the afternoon.

  • 12pm: fair opens, stalls open
  • 1pm: gentle guided walk through the woods with the Friends of Selsdon Wood
  • 2pm: Songsations singing
  • 2pm: games for children with the Rotary
  • 3pm: games for children with the Rotary
  • 4pm: fair closes

The Scouts are providing the refreshments and the Rotary is running the children’s activities (Selsdon Community Fair poster, PDF).

Getting there

The entrance is on Old Farleigh Road, Selsdon, CR0 9HW. There is a car park with several bays for disabled drivers (Croydon Council parks directory).

The reserve covers 200 acres, or 80.94 hectares, of woodland and open meadow, with ponds and a shelter. It is owned by the National Trust and managed by Croydon Council.

The wood exists because people paid for it

Selsdon Wood is not an accident of the green belt. It was bought by public subscription in the 1930s, at the point when it was about to disappear.

The Selsdon Park estate broke up after its owner died in 1923. By 1925 it was reported that “all principal timber, both in Lady Grove and Court Wood, had been removed”, and the land around it was already being sold off in small plots. A campaign committee wrote to the local and national press, produced an appeal brochure with a donation slip, and advertised guided tours of the wood to raise money.

The original target was 16 acres. The appeal did well enough that the committee raised its ambition to just under the 200 acres the reserve holds today.

The National Trust would not take on the upkeep without an endowment, so a deal was struck: ownership went to the Trust, and maintenance became the joint responsibility of Croydon Corporation and the Urban District Council of Coulsdon and Purley. The Lord Mayor of London, Sir Percy Vincent, who lived in Purley, opened the reserve on 5 June 1936. He called it a link in the green belt encircling London, and planted a tree to mark the day (Croydon Council, Selsdon Wood Nature Reserve history, PDF).

The reserve turns 90 next June. Sunday’s guided walk goes through ground that a few hundred people bought so that nobody could build on it.

What it means for you

If you are going, the timed items are the walk at 1pm and the singing at 2pm, so arriving around 12.30 gets you the stalls and both. The children’s games run at 2pm and again at 3pm.

If you are driving, the car park is off Old Farleigh Road and it is the only one at that entrance, so it fills. By bus, TfL’s stop data puts the nearest route 433 stops, at Dove Close, about 200 metres from the entrance; check TfL for Sunday times.

If you want more of the same weekend, the London Radical Bookfair is at Stanley Arts in South Norwood on the same Sunday, and the South Croydon Model Railway Show follows on Saturday 12 September. The SRA is promoting a local model railway show on that date too.

Note for anyone travelling by train that Sunday: there are no Southern trains between West Croydon and Sutton or Epsom Downs all day, with replacement buses instead. Our roadworks and travel page has the detail.

More things to do across the borough are in our guide to days out in Croydon.

Sources