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Centrale, Croydon

shopping centre in Croydon

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 18, 2026
Entity authorityQ5062164 ↗
Source-derived summary

Centrale is a shopping centre in Croydon, South London. It is one of the largest covered retail developments in London. It is owned and managed by Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield and was opened in 2004. Plans were announced in January 2013 to redevelop Centrale and combine it with the Whitgift Centre.

Centrale is located on North End, Croydon, facing the Whitgift Centre. It was developed from the existing but much smaller Drummond Centre. It now contains a large store – House of Fraser and formerly a Debenhams store – and around 50 smaller stores including Next, H&M and Zara.

Retail area

The 820,000 sq ft (76,200 m2) development also housed Croydon's first and only dedicated indoor food court on the upper level. The Food Gallery was given planning permission after the main centre was built and opened in November 2005 with seating for 200 diners. As of 2013, the Food Court has no tenants, the units being boarded up, however until 2020 there was still pedestrian access to the first floor of Debenhams until that store closed.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Centrale, Croydon” as shopping centre in Croydon. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Centrale, Croydon and shopping.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2004, 2013, 2005, 2020—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2004. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Centrale, Croydon and shopping providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Centrale, Croydon”, the useful work is to connect “shopping centre in Croydon” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5062164. Authority coordinates are 51.376, -0.103. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2004, 2013, 2005 and 2020.

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A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Centrale, Croydon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.