London's fourth Borough of Culture has finally woken up.
Waltham Forest opened strongly in 2019 with multiple events. Brent had 2020 so their intended output was rapidly squashed. Lewisham's 2022 programme made little broader impact.
And now Croydon's actually doing multiple things, hurrah.
Two of the larger cultural events this summer involve music and giraffes. I've been to experience both, even though this was harder than I expected.
The giraffes are part of an art trail called Croydon Stands Tall. This is your usual "we've decorated giant copies of a beloved animal and spread them across town for you to find and enjoy" immersive quest. It's not exactly original - central London had its first herd of colourful cows in 2002, and there's barely a big town or city in the UK that hasn't tried it at least once with owls, elephants, dragons, hares, bulls or whatever. But they are always a crowdpleaser and no other Borough of Culture has tried this yet so well done Croydon.
There are 30 large giraffes, each decorated by an artist and sponsored by a local business because the money has to come from somewhere. These are generally outdoors in the street, anywhere from Croydon Minster to East Croydon station. Then there are 30 smaller giraffes, this time decorated by schools and other organisations because community engagement is key. These are generally indoors, anywhere from the Fairfield Halls to Marks and Spencer. You could just enjoy them in passing or you could try to track them all down and collect the lot... for which you're going to need a map or an app.
The map's good, turning this into a herbivorous orienteering challenge. It's also easy to find on the website, or at least it was on my laptop. But when I tried to use the website on my phone the links to the map never seemed to appear whichever page I opened. I must have spent five minutes on a damp Croydon pavement endlessly clicking and scrolling round the website in search of a map that never seemed to be mentioned anywhere but which I knew existed, eventually being driven to exclaim "oh ffs just show me the bloody giraffes!" or words to that effect.
So I tried to find a paper copy of the map instead. I knew these existed because an article on Londonist had said Croydon Library had some... but it turns out Croydon's main library is closed all day on Thursdays because a previous incarnation of the council was financially negligent. Eventually I found a glossy copy of the map - well, lots - at the information desk in the Whitgift Centre, and also in the foyer of the Fairfield Halls later on. Apparently they're also available to collect from the main stations and the Tramlink shop, because I found this information really easily on my laptop when I got home but again somehow bugger all on my smartphone.
You might find the app easier to use. This additionally enables you to 'chart your progress' and to 'earn and redeem local rewards' by making note of the 4-digit codes on each giraffe's plinth. Rewards include 10% off children's books at Waterstones and "5% discount off any in-store purchase (bowlswear, nametapes, scouts & guides uniform/badges not included)" at Hewitts school and sportswear specialists. If you have more money to spend then all the large giraffes are being auctioned off at the end of the run to support a local homeless charity, but that's not until the middle of November so you have plenty of time to see them all in situ.
Local website Inside Croydon was serially unimpressed with the trail, calling it "highly derivative, zero imagination, artwashing stuff intended to increase footfall in a shopping mall" with "all the artistic credentials of Les Dennis". But if you enjoy this sort of thing you'll absolutely enjoy it.
And when you're done with giraffes there's the music trail as well. The Croydon Music Heritage Trail celebrates the frankly phenomenal contribution of the borough to all kinds of music, from Kirsty MacColl to Adele and Ralph McTell to Stormzy. A new focal mural in Queen's Gardens includes many famous faces -(yes the bloke in the beret is Captain Sensible) and a couple of walking tours have been organised (only one of which remains). But you're probably going to need to navigate round the trail yourself and this time there is no map, it's app or nothing, so I expect that's a fair few potential visitors excluded already.
There are two trails, one Central (with all the big venues) and one Northern (covering Selhurst, South Norwood and Thornton Heath). I like a good offbeat suburb so I picked the latter and fired up the app to check the map. It offered seven locations to visit, which by dint of history don't form a particularly good linear route so a fair bit of doubling-back is required. The app vibrates as you get close to one of the designated locations, which is useful because I'd have missed at least one otherwise, but also annoying because it triggers just before you get there rather than immediately outside. And perhaps don't pick GCSE results day when the first point on the trail is a secondary school.
[16] The Brit School: Founded in 1991, this springboard to musical fame was funded by the British Government and the British Record Industry Trust. Alumni include Amy Winehouse, Leona Lewis, Kate Nash, Katy Melua, Kae Tempest, Dane Bowers, the co-writer of the UK's 1995 Eurovision entry and several thousand pupils with no chart career whatsoever. Come read some in-app paragraphs while standing by the front fence. [17] Avril Coleridge-Taylor: Daughter of the better-known Samuel, mixed-race Avril was an accomplished conductor, composer and pianist. The current owners of her house on Dagnall Park Road really don't want anyone seeing the blue plaques out front and have grown fairy-tale-sized conifers to shield themselves, so this stop is not really a must-see. [18] Ariwa Sounds: This unprepossessing off-white shed is actually the UK's longest black-owned music studio, inaugurated by the Mad Professor 40 years ago. The trail also chooses to commemorate Desmond Dekker's hits The Israelites and 007 (Shanty Town) here, rather than suggesting you trek all the way out to Addiscombe to see where he really lived. [19] Original Tasty Jerk: From Sqwod to Rooftop, the oeuvre of songwriter Nadia Rose needs little introduction. The trail celebrates her musical magnificence outside her favourite football-adjacent Caribbean takeaway, which were it more than two minutes from the previous site might feel like a complete waste of your time. [20] RMS Studios: This is where local band St Etienne recorded their second album So Tough which notably included You're in a Bad Way and Hobart Paving. I'm not quite sure which of the empty shopfronts round the back of Selhurst Park I was supposed to be looking at, but it was nice to listen to Bob Stanley talk all things Croydon. [21] Stanley Arts: This fine Art Nouveau building is a grassroots arts centre and the cultural hub for South Norwood. It looks great but you're not going to learn much about it from the minimal trail info, which is a bit annoying when you've trooped all this way to see it and the final stop is a mile back in the opposite direction. [22] Stormzy: As the biggest star to emerge from Croydon since Adele you'd hope the trail would take you somewhere significant like his childhood home, his primary school or his youth club. Instead it takes you to his local library in Thornton Heath and quite frankly I didn't bother wasting my time going, I just read the background info on the bus home.
In good news, even if you can't get to Croydon you can read all 45 pages of text-based information in an impressively comprehensive 45-page pdf downloadable here. I'd recommended doing that instead of walking the Northern Trail, whereas I suspect the Central Trail has more to see. Also apparently every stop on the trail has its own plaque set into the pavement, but I never saw one while I was walking round and only learned this from an Inside Croydon review afterwards. They weren't overly impressed either.
So there you go, music and giraffes in Croydon, the former more cultural and the latter more fun, and neither explained quite as well as they could have been.
