Crocus Valley is a love letter to Croydon, my home.

It’s a purposefully unexpected glimpse and romantic view of this cultural and generational patchwork quilt of a place that’s supposedly empty of such romance. Scenes that are rarely, if ever, depicted in the media or spoken about.

Being on this particular edge of the UK’s capital has its advantages, whether it’s hopping on the tram into Croydon’s much wilder lands – which sees big pink skies, lush rolling hills, and grazing cattle – or tracing the ancient rural remains of this strange town-city hybrid, evidence of which still remains throughout the borough; look to the names for a hint: Norwood, Selhurst ("dwelling in a wood"), Thornton Heath, Broad Green, Waddon (“the hill where woad grows”) and Croydon itself – the name is thought to mean “crocus valley”, referring to a possible history of cultivation of the Saffron flower.

The abundant nature and the not-so-hidden beauty doesn’t mean the very serious issues the borough faces don’t exist; however, like they do in all London boroughs, these extremes exist side-by-side. This is simply another side to Croydon’s truth.

Crocus Valley published by RRB Photobooks features poetry by Croydon poet laureate Shaniqua Benjamin and cover artwork by local arist Bev Jones.

The book was launched August 2023 with two outdoor exhibitions and a mini series of events as part of Croydon’s London Borough of Culture programme.

Roaming cattle, charming meadows, an abundance of rare wildflowers… poetic scenes like this aren’t usually what come to mind when “Croydon” is mentioned. And yet, these are all part of Croydon’s truth.

In this borough, much of the land is chalk grassland, a type of species-rich land prominent in the south of England in which you’ll find some of the rarest habitats in the UK – and it’s fast disappearing, with almost 80% of these grasslands lost since the 1940s.

Conservation grazing is a centuries-old land management technique that primarily uses sheep along with cattle and goats to graze the land, and in recent decades this technique has seen a return as several organisations and charities work towards restoring the deep biodiversity and abundance of wildlife unique to our landscape here.

This is a part of the borough not often seen, and never shown in the media. But these wilder sides of Croydon are beautiful to behold.

Rural Croydon was shown in exhibition at Thornton Heath Library alongside John Constable’s The Cornfield, as part of the National Gallery’s Constable Visits programme.

Commissioned by #ThisIsCroydon, London Borough of Culture 2023-24 in partnership with the National Gallery as part of Constable Visits

An all-women expedition follow trailblazing mountaineer Nan Shepherd’s footsteps into the tumultuous Cairngorms.

If you know London, you’ve probably heard of Croydon – and you probably know about its reputation. Ask almost anyone and they’ll tell you that Croydon is an ugly, concrete mess with deluded aspirations of wanting to be a city, and don’t get started on the crime. Some of this is certainly true; however, it’s no more deserved than most other London boroughs. Yet Croydon is the most reviled of them all.

I grew up here and I still live here. I’ve seen and experienced this place in all its many personalities – good, bad, and ugly. The thing about Croydon is that it’s also full of incredible beauty: in its abundant green and natural spaces which many don’t know about, its 10,000 cultures inside 10 miles, the easily-missable everyday moments, and sometimes, genuinely, the not-so-nice moments.

Over the years, I’ve made countless photographs of my hometown. Here they show an unnoticed side to this place; the delicate, poetic, and unashamedly romantic side. I hope you can see what I see.

Garden diary

2020 - 2021
At home in Croydon

Hard Work

2014
Qufu School of Shaolin Kung Fu, China

Featured in British Journal of Photography, 2015