[2] In 1987, conscious that the borough had an "identity problem" – it was perceived as "boring, bland and mediocre" – the Council committed £30 million towards a new arts, library and cultural complex, subsequently named Croydon Clocktower, which was to include a new local museum.

The development process included an extensive programme of market research, undertaken in order to ascertain what the public wanted from a museum, and to make it accessible and relevant to the wider community.

Exhibits were mainly borrowed from local residents; much information was drawn from oral history interviews; and there were no glass cases or labels (interpretation and explanation being supplied entirely through multimedia computer terminals).

In a token acknowledgement of the borough's earlier history, an entrance sculpture was commissioned tracing Croydon's story back to the Big Bang.

Gaynor Kavanagh, lecturer in Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, hailed it as: a brave, bold and intelligent approach to exploring the contradictions and continuities which lie behind the complex histories of modern-day Croydon.

[12][15] "In the absence of labelling," wrote Maurice Davies in the Museums Journal, "screens are a cumbersome way to present basic information.

[1] Caroline Reinhardt in The Spectator wrote: There is nothing in the displays about Croydon's putative origins as a Roman staging post; nothing about its thousand-odd years of growth as a manor and palace of the Archbishops of Canterbury; nothing about its early industrial history.

Artists represented include a number with strong local connections, such as Cicely Mary Barker, Rosa Petherick, Horace William Petherick, Juliet Pannett, Bridget Riley,[20] and Malcolm McLaren; as well as others, such as Valentine Prinsep and Rabindranath Tagore, whose work has entered the collections through more indirect routes.

[21] In November 2013, it was stripped of its accreditation (now under the auspices of Arts Council England), and excluded from reapplying for five years, following its decision to put 24 items from the Riesco Collection up for sale at auction in what was described as a "deliberate contravention" of the Museums Association's code of ethics.