Welcome

The Borough Archive contains over 1000 archive collections relating to the London Borough of Croydon, its predecessor bodies and the diverse community it now serves. It also holds a wide range of local history material including books, photographs, maps, newspapers and other items that illustrate and reflect the wide and varied history of Croydon, invaluable resources for the study of the past, present and future of Croydon.
Please search and browse our collections to find out more about the history of Croydon and its residents.

How to view physical collection items

The Archives are now part of Croydon Libraries Service. Physical items from our archival collections can be accessed via our Research Room by appointment on Wednesday or Friday. Please contact us initially at archives@croydon.gov.uk providing details of your enquiry, including the reference identifier of the item(s) of interest. We will acknowledge any requests and can send you a link to book a suitable appointment to visit.

Developing our online collections

In 2015, we began the migration of our collections to this new online platform. There are now details of over 700 collections available. These include our collection of admissions registers and log books for local schools and around 150 collections of personal papers, individuals or local firms records.

We are a place of deposit for health records such as Board of Guardian records and Cane Hill Asylum registers (but not individual patient records).

We are not the place of deposit for Church of England records for this area, these are held at Surrey History Centre, although many of these are available online via Ancestry.

Work is ongoing and we hope to make all our collections available on this catalogue soon . This includes our deeds collections and faith community records.