It is located 7.8 miles (12.5 km) south-east of Charing Cross, north of Woodside and Addiscombe, east of Selhurst and Thornton Heath, south of Crystal Palace/Upper Norwood and Anerley, and south-west of Penge.

At the northern end of the town is South Norwood Lake, which was created after the reservoir for the unsuccessful Croydon Canal went out of use.

In 1848 South Norwood remained a small hamlet, however the following 10–20 years rapid development occurred with the construction of roads and the Selhurst Park estate.

[6] In 1966, a dog called Pickles discovered, under a bush in Beulah Hill, the FIFA World Cup Jules Rimet Trophy, which had been stolen from an exhibition of rare stamps at Westminster Central Hall.

[10] In the south east of the borough, where workers for a former brick factory lived, the entrance to the estate was between a pair of pillars, though they have long since been demolished.

However the capitals were preserved and now sit on the two brick pillars at the Selhurst Road entrance to South Norwood Recreation Ground.

The town is now part of the wards of South Norwood and Woodside in the local authority of Croydon, which has the responsibility for providing services such as education, refuse collection, and tourism.

This line of hills runs from north-east to south-west for about three miles (5 km) and rises to approximately 360 feet (110 m) above sea level at its highest point.

[citation needed] It is formed by a ridge of grey silty deposits known as London Clay, capped in places with the gravel of the Claygate Beds.

Here a brook marks the junction with the sands and gravels of the Blackheath Beds that rise to Shirley, Addington Hills and Croham Hurst.

[citation needed] South Norwood contains a leisure centre which is owned and maintained by Better on behalf of Sport Croydon.

It had been closed in early 2006 and was due for demolition, so that it could be redesigned from scratch like the leisure centre in Thornton Heath, at a cost of around £10 million.

After previously being home to a sewage works (closed in 1966) and fireworks factory; the habitat has been cultivated over time to nurture an abundance of species and wildlife.

The event is run entirely by volunteers and profits are donated to local charities and invested back into the future festival plans.

Facilities include an eight-lane 400m running track, with a centre field and training area for throwing events.

[29] Premier League club Crystal Palace are based in the nearby Selhurst Park and on match days the pubs on the high street are usually busy with fans and ticket-holders.

The area is known as Sensible Garden, named after Captain Sensible who attended Stanley Boys School, on the site that is now the Harris Academy.

The organisation's vision focuses on under-represented voices, providing artists of colour and LGBTQ+ creatives with a platform in South London and beyond.

In the 1960s Shirley Bassey, Matt Munro and Johnny Dankworth were among the professional musicians who rehearsed here for performances at nearby Fairfield Halls in Croydon.

An inventor rather than a trained architect, Stanley wasn’t interested in following any one architectural style in his designs for the building, resulting in a unique and idiosyncratic combination of styles and materials described by the architecture historian Nikolaus Pevsner as ‘one of the most eccentric efforts anywhere at a do-it-yourself freestyle.’[35] Standing next to Stanley’s new technical trade school, which was inspired by the German Gewerbeschulen trade schools and was the first of its kind in Britain, it made perfect sense that the Stanley Halls complex should be used for purposes both educational and cultural.

Other speakers in later years, who have followed in Alice Abadam’s footsteps on the stage of Stanley Hall, include Harold Wilson and John Smith.

[citation needed] During the War Years, first aid courses are thought to have taken place here and the building may have been used as temporary shelter for residents bombed out of their homes.

Records from the 1950s show that social events in the Halls ranged from birthday celebrations, antique fairs, ‘Meet a Mum’ jumble sales, weddings, aerobics, to a Psychic Festival.

The fact that the Halls offered a multi-purpose community venue played a significant role in the promotion of local citizenship and civic pride in the post-war period.

Over the next five years the future of the larger, lower half, the ‘unneeded’ part of the Stanley Halls complex as it was seen by the developers of the new school academy, was in question.

Over the first few years of operation this new, reduced, Stanley Halls slowly found its feet; and with it, a renewed sense of purpose.

Paradoxically, the pandemic of 2020 helped to re-establish the buildings in the hearts and minds of local people as an essential home for art, performance and community.

In 1901 he had conceived the idea of building a local home for entertainment, art and culture, and nearly 120 years later his vision was to be renewed.

The project includes the lengthening of platforms, station remodelling, new railway infrastructure (e.g. viaduct) and additional rolling stock.

[citation needed] Trams do not run through the town centre of South Norwood, with the nearest stops on the Tramlink network being Harrington Road, Arena and Woodside.