A tight cluster of 1960s office towers over a covered shopping centre, with tram tracks at street level and terraced streets close behind.
What Croydon looks like
runs through a cluster of concrete and glass office towers, the tallest running to about twenty four storeys with a grid of dark glazing between narrow columns. Tram tracks run in a reserved lane down the centre of the road, with buses and cars in the lanes to either side.
The 's blue tiled sign rises above the covered mall between two of the taller blocks, with a stepped office tower behind the shopfronts. Double decker buses queue along the kerb underneath it, and the tram wires run overhead across the width of the junction.
A block or two back from the towers, plain two storey terraced houses run in short straight rows, bay windows and chimney pots facing each other across narrow streets. The office towers are still visible over the rooftops from most of these streets, and one stepped concrete tower with curved balconies rises directly behind a parade of shops on .
holds a market most days of the week, with stalls and crates set out along the length of the road. , a 1962 concert hall restored in 2019, stands at the corner of Park Lane a few streets south. Its facade is a mix of stone, granite and steel framed glazing.
Shot in Croydon
Productions have used Croydon's office towers for parts other than themselves, and for the town itself as it stands. 's octagonal tower has appeared as a fictional games company and as Croydon in its own right, and a former telecoms block nearby became a hospital in a comic book sequel. , the covered parade behind the Whitgift Centre, was dressed as a Polish high street for the Amazon Prime Video film Heads of State in 2023. The same parade was fitted with 1980s shop fronts for Bandersnatch in 2018, before part of it was cleared for a stalled redevelopment.
Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, 2018
No. 1 Croydon
Played Tuckersoft, 1984
The tower's stepped concrete exterior served as the offices of Tuckersoft, the fictional games company at the centre of the story. The building is a real 1970 office tower, twenty four storeys on an octagonal plan, still standing on Addiscombe Road. Street View
Terry and June, 1979
The same tower appears in the title sequence of the BBC sitcom Terry and June, an establishing shot used before each episode. The sitcom ran on BBC1 from 1979 to 1987.
The Dark Knight Rises, 2012
Played Gotham General Hospital, Gotham City, 2012
The production dressed the reception of this former telecoms tower as Gotham General Hospital, keeping the building's own 1970s reception fittings in shot. The tower has since been converted into flats, and its ground floor entrance still bears the Delta Point sign. Street View
What Croydon can double for
Coolsingel in Rotterdam, Netherlands
Coolsingel is Rotterdam's rebuilt main boulevard, widened after the war and lined with modernist office blocks similar in scale to Croydon's own cluster. Trams still run along the boulevard between the buildings, the same street level arrangement Croydon's tramlink uses. Dutch cycle lanes and different tram liveries would need dressing out of a wide shot, and the buildings themselves run a little lower than Croydon's tallest towers. Try searching rebuilt boulevard with trams now.
Main Street in Buffalo, New York
An above ground light rail line runs along Main Street in downtown Buffalo at street level, past office towers built in the same postwar renewal era as Croydon's cluster. The scale and spacing of the towers along the street is close to Wellesley Road's. Buffalo's older masonry buildings sit closer to the rail line than anything in Croydon, so a tight frame on the towers works better than a wide one. Try searching light rail street towers now.
Miller Street in Manchester, England
The Co-operative Insurance tower on Miller Street is a twenty five storey concrete and glass office block completed in 1962, close in height and date to Croydon's own tower on Addiscombe Road. Manchester's Metrolink trams run at street level a few blocks south, past a similar mix of postwar office blocks. The tower's rooftop solar cladding, added in a later refit, would need to stay out of a period frame. Try searching concrete office tower street now.
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