For the past few years I’ve been documenting some of the change taking place in the centre of Croydon.

Croydon born and bred, the Nestlé building and surrounding St George’s Walk have been a prominent place and part of my whole life. From the café at 20 Katharine Street I went to on the first day of my Art Foundation course at Croydon college to the many hours spent in Turtles on Park Street. Then in later years’ the importance of Rise Gallery for St George’s Walk and its impact on my life and many other creatives in Croydon.

In this mini compilation, launched on Instagram, I take a few of the photograhs that showcase Nestlé as the iconic brutalist era building it is. And then a few images as the building starts to change with the removal of the glass foyer and scaffolding encasing the building ready for it to emerge like a butterfly in its new form - from office block to residential.

For me, as I have a passion for brutalist era architecture and architectural photography, there was so much in this small area of interest. But what I wanted to do in this film is just focus on the Nestlé HQ building. St George’s Walk, Ellis House, 20 Katharine Street, Katherine House and Park Street will all have their video moments on my timeline.

A brief history

As the scaffolding is at a standstill for the moment, it seemed the right time to look back at Nestlé before and after.

Designed by architects Ronald Ward and Partners it was completed in 1964. Home to the Nestlé head office, the company opted to leave this site in 2012 and with that over 800 employees moved to Gatwick.

Included in my series is a night shot I took about 20 years ago, it was when there was a scheme to light up Croydon and long after the Nestlé building was emptied, you’d often see a lone couple of lights still shining on the top of the building. There’s also a nod to the Blue Orchid which lived beneath the Nestle building (was called The Greyhound prior to that), with the blue O – this shot was taken on the day it was taken down.

Time-lapse

As the end shot in the video shows, this is Nestlé as we know it today, clad in scaffolding. Over the years, I’ve shot a time-lapse of the scaffolding going up. This took time I can tell you, but I've also learnt to love scaffolding - I think it's the geometry that I admire in a brutalist building. Scaffolding went up, it came down, it went up again, it got covered and then due to high wind forecasts the white covers were removed which marks the last shot in my complilation and within the time-lapse video. Fairfield also evolved during this time which meant my position for the tripod continually changed. I opted for the straight on shot to really highlight the iconic nature of Nestlé. With no fixed spot for the time lapse it’s a little shaky.

Now developer R&F Properties and architect Aedas are working on the refurbishment and development of the area which will now be known as Queen’s Square.