Old Coulsdon, CR5: house prices, village guide and local information

Old Coulsdon sits on the high chalk of the North Downs in the London Borough of Croydon, and it is older than the town that now shares its name. When the railway reached the valley in 1889, the new settlement of Smitham Bottom took the name Coulsdon from this village on the hill to its south-east, and the two have been mixed up ever since. They still share the CR5 postcode district, but they are different places: Coulsdon is a station town, Old Coulsdon a village with a green, a cricket pitch and a medieval church.

That church, St John the Evangelist, is Grade I listed, which puts it in the top few per cent of listed buildings in England. Taunton Farmhouse, a Grade II listed building about 550 m from the centre, is another designated heritage asset recorded nearby. Ordnance Survey maps from 1888 to 1914 show how rural the village was: they letter names such as Lacey Green, Windmill House, Tollers Farm, Taunton Farm, Old Brickkiln and Rydon's Lane around the church. A name on an old map does not prove a building survives, but together they sketch a working farming parish.

Few parts of London's edge are as close to open country. The nearest named green spaces are In Wood (550 m), Happy Valley (680 m), New Hill (870 m) and Grange Park (880 m), with Devil's Den Woods and Bradmore Green, a common, a little further out. In all, twelve named green spaces fall within 0.9 miles of the village centre, along with around 170 mapped paths within 0.6 miles.

Six named walking routes pass nearby. The London LOOP, the 150-mile circular path around the capital, runs past in two sections (5 and 6), and the Happy Valley and Farthing Downs Nature Trail, the Downlands Circular Walk, Wood Pigeon Way and the Caterham Circular Walk all start within about two miles. Farthing Downs and Happy Valley are a Site of Special Scientific Interest, managed by the City of London Corporation and Croydon Council.

Old Coulsdon works as a village rather than a high street. Within 800 m of the centre OpenStreetMap lists 66 amenities: a handful of everyday shops (a Londis among them), eleven places to eat and drink including Cafe Shack, ten health services including Old Coulsdon Pharmacy, two libraries, a post office, six community centres, three playgrounds and some thirty sports facilities. It is not a complete directory, and coverage in OpenStreetMap is uneven, but it shows a village with more going on than its size suggests.

The bus terminus at the Tudor Rose has been part of the village since the early days of motor buses in London, which named many of its termini after the public house beside them. Photographs record route 190 here in 1988 and route 50 in 1998. A 2005 picture shows the John Fisher Rugby Club's ground, used by old boys of John Fisher School in Purley.

Oasis Academy Coulsdon, a secondary school for ages 11 to 16, is the closest school at 260 m. Keston Primary is 550 m away, Coulsdon CofE Primary 0.6 miles, and Oasis Academy Byron, New Valley Primary and The Hayes Primary lie between 1.0 and 1.2 miles. Distances are straight-line from the village centre and are not catchment areas, so check admissions rules with Croydon Council. Each school's latest Ofsted report is linked from the Department for Education record.

Old Coulsdon ranks 2nd of the 5 CR5 areas we cover for median sale price, at £550,000 since 2019 (274 sales). That is £60,000 above Coulsdon's £490,000. Houses alone sold for a median of £555,000.

In the 2021 Census 46% of households here owned their home, compared with 90% in Chipstead and 73% in Hooley. Within about 1.5 miles there are 7 primary or secondary schools and 13 mapped public charging sites within 6 km. Each area's own page covers the detail.

The average Band D council tax in Croydon is £2,600 for 2026 to 2027, £208 above the England average of £2,392. That ranks Croydon 36th highest of 296 billing authorities, and the charge rose from £2,480 last year. Next door in Reigate and Banstead, Band D is £2,567, £33 less than in Croydon, so which side of a council boundary a home sits on changes the bill by about £33 a year at Band D.

Your own bill depends on your property's band. In England bands are set from the home's estimated value on 1 April 1991, so a Band C home pays eight ninths of the Band D charge and a Band F home thirteen ninths. The figures below are the charge for each band in Croydon, before any discount or reduction, and they include the county or borough, police, fire and any parish or GLA precepts averaged across the authority.