Croydon transmission tower

Last month, I visited Crystal Palace Park and saw the transmission tower in its grounds. It's certainly rather impressive, both in size and in scale regarding the area it covers. It serves all of Greater London, with assistance from Alexandra Palace in North London, and is the main transmission tower around here. 

It also has a backup, in the event that it can't function properly - say hello to the Croydon transmission tower. It's not located in Croydon town centre, in fact it's only a road away from Crystal Palace. This is South Norwood, along South Norwood Hill. Head north, and you'll find yourself by Crown Point; head south, and Norwood Junction awaits you.

It's very close to the road junction where South Norwood Hill becomes Beulah Hill, the latter possibly named for Bewler's Farm, a site for Tudor charcoal burners. At the start of the road are various wealthy properties, and Beulah Hill Pond which I blogged about earlier this year. 

Here, however, you're at the top of the Norwood Ridge, an area of land built on clay deposits, so you can catch a stunning view of Norwood and beyond. That also explains why various roads here are hills. You're also near the source of the River Effra, which used to flow proudly from the nearby South Norwood Grounds, through Herne Hill and Brixton, before joining up with the Thames at Vauxhall - now it's hidden underground, converted into a sewer.

The Croydon transmission tower, however, is arguably the main reason to visit this corner of South London, not that you'd particularly want to see it. It's a lattice tower, very similar in design to Crystal Palace, though shorter by about 70m. It's dotted with various satellite dishes, and stands behind an Arqiva facility. Surrounding the tower are the Beaulieu Heights, one of the various parks located in Norwood, and which I've been meaning to visit for a while.

Croydon was the site of the first ITV broadcasts. Indeed, the tower was only constructed here because the ITA, the body regulating ITV at the time, wanted their London broadcasts to be as close to the BBC's as possible; they were situated at Crystal Palace. In 1955, Associated-Rediffusion, the franchise holder for ITV's broadcasts in London, began transmitting their various programmes to the masses from Croydon, as the BBC gained competition in the new advertiser-friendly network. Different franchises came and went, until they stopped in 1985. I may as well point out that these broadcasts took place at very high frequency (VHF) bands - from 30 to 300 MHz - which were, alongside ultra high frequency (UHF) bands (frequencies from 300 to 3000 MHz), the main standards of TV broadcasting in the UK. They did away with VHF in 1985, and UHF followed in 2012.

Croydon was left with FM radio until it started broadcasting Channel 5's analogue signal in 1997. It continued doing this until 2012, when analogue TV was switched off permanently. Since then, Croydon has broadcasted FM and DAB radio, the latter utilising the former VHF bands. (It's also worth noting that Croydon was the site of the first transmissions of two then local stations. The first was LBC, a talk radio station which has unfortunately made it nationwide and on every bloody advertising board. The other is Capital, which has unfortunately made it nationwide, playing the same annoying chart hits every few hours.)

Whilst Croydon continues to rule the waves, the surrounding area feels somewhat grey. South Norwood isn't the most vibrant place, what with it being filled with rows of houses, with the odd church or care home block. Perhaps it's apt that this place is most renowned for a tower which has fallen ever quieter, as much as it saddens me.

I'm sorry for blogging about Croydon again. I realise I talk too often about Croydon, and I understand the pain this must cause.

This article by TheBigTower is a fantastic read, and has made up most of my research on the tower's broadcasting history.