Parks and playgrounds directory

Location

Coulsdon, between Meadow Hill and Grove Wood Hill.

Area

10 acres 4.05 hectares.

Facilities

• Sports field

History

Woodcote Grove was purchased in 1931 by the Urban District Council of Coulsdon and Purley from the Woodcote Grove Estate.  The land was for a recreation and sports ground.  

In 1940 the ground was closed because a bomb had fallen in the field and not exploded.  However, the device must have been detonated because records show that costs of £215 were claimed by the UDC for repairing the bomb crater.  The crater was partially filled with material removed from the Woodcote Park Golf Course.  

Later in 1940 permission was given to United Dairies Ltd. of Woodcote Grove Farm to plough part of the field for crops.  The request for this permission reminded the Council that the Ministry of Agriculture were looking for more ground to be ploughed and suggested that the yield would treble.  Reinstatement of the field after the war was overseen by the Surrey War Agricultural Committee who eventually released the land from its registers in 1954.  

The ground is used by local schools for sport; the adjacent Woodcote School was opened in 1954.