With the coming of the railways in the 1830s, Cherry Orchard Road ceased to be a quiet rural lane and railway workers’ cottages sprang up - many are still marked with the date of 1838. After 1858 and the sale of Addiscombe Military Seminary, significant urbanisation occurred.

Cherry Orchard Road was originally Coney Lane. North of its junction with a track over the common, Cherry Orchard Road was a private carriage way called Lee’s Road.

South of the junction, a map of 1801 shows an orchard on the road’s western side extending as far as Addiscombe Road. Owned by a Mrs E Robinson, it was an orchard of cherry trees and when the cherries were ripe, a cherry fair was celebrated here.

By 1851, the road was called Cherry Orchard Road though the orchard was gone by then, the land having been bought by the London and Brighton Railway, which began running trains from London Bridge to the coast via East Croydon in 1841.

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Main source:	East Croydon Community Organisation | Community website for East Croydon, UK, area ([email protected])
	Further citations and sources