South Norwood Country Park is a park in South Norwood, close to Elmers End and Birkbeck train stations. The historic Kent-Surrey border runs through the site, and since 1965 it has been located wholly in the London Borough of Croydon. It is a 47 hectare (116 acre) green space which opened in 1989. The park is a mix of countryside and parkland, and land formerly used for sewage farms serving the growing London population. Croydon Sports Arena, the home of Croydon F.C., is on the south-eastern edge of the park. There is also a car park and visitor centre, and a duck pond similar to the one at South Norwood Lake. History The site that is now known as South Norwood Country Park has undergone many changes in its long and chequered history, from the days of the Great North Wood to ancient moated house, sewage farm, farming, the war years, civil defence, allotments, wasteland, highways, refuse dump and now the Country Park. La Motes medieval moated site The Park was the location of a medieval moated manor, the site of which is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. An archaeological excavation was carried out in 1972 by Lillian Thornhill on behalf of the Croydon Natural History & Scientific Society in an attempt to ascertain the age of the double-sided moat shown on the Thomas Morley estate map of 1736 with the name La Motes. On an earlier estate map of Peter Burrell, the land is indicated as adjoining Sturts Land and is given the name Lame Oates which is obviously a phonetic corruption of La Motes. Deeds of 1467 relate to a mortgage transaction at Leweland between Richard at Cherte and Stephan and John Fabian of London. At an earlier date, there is documentary evidence of a 13th- or 14th-century manor house of some importance on the site. The principal owner was Robert de Retford, one of the King's itinerant judges, active between 1295 and 1318. The low-lying position of the land, with streams flowing through it, raises the possibility of natural phenomena, such as the floods of 1315 to 1317, having played a part in the house's disappearance. Most of the moated earthworks were filled in during the period when the site was used as a sewage farm. The site is formed of two concentric moats, in the middle of which is a square platform where the manor house once