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The Whitgift Arms was situated on Church Road. This pub was demolished in the mid 1960s when construction of the Croydon Flyover started.

Source: Dave Harwood

Ralph McTell was brought up in Croydon and he and his backing band used The Whitgift Arms. He featured the pub on the cover of his album 'My Side of Your Window' which was eventually released in 1969 and became Melody Maker magazine's Folk Album of the Month. He even put in the pub sign and the door in the picture is the door to the public bar, the door to the saloon just visible to the right. Peter Thaine, Ralph's friend from Art College days, designed the album sleeve as a 3-D cut-out theatre featuring the pub with musicians and characters from the album songs. 'Hand Me My Travelin' Shoes' by Michael Gray is a book about blues musician and songwriter Blind Willie McTell after whom Ralph McTell named himself. On page 13 Ralph is quoted as saying: "It was all intoxicating for me; a music that made sense when I was living through the confusion of being a teenager. And then there's that mysterious process where like-minded people find each other. People came from all over to the Whitgift Arms in Croydon, to drink cheap cider and discover this music. And in London, too, I knew people who were into Blues and Beat poetry. A time of finding that sense of freedom through art and travel and music that I'm still very sentimental about".

thewhitgiftarms.blogspot.com (September 2023)

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