Dear Nancy, the first legal license to the pub was in 1862. I say this tongue in cheek as it was known that there was a Drinking Establishment there, but it did like a lot of other places not have a Legal License. This goes back to the Gin wars and other events in the 1700s, however when the Croydon canal was built 1780-1809 they needed bricks, so took the clay off the top of Blythe Hill Fields. It is mentioned in there as an establishment in 1790 but was not legal then!
Unfortunately it got hit quite badly during the Second World War by the dreaded V1s or Doodlebugs as we called them. Basically the British tricked the Germans into believing that the V1s were not hitting London, so the Germans changed the unmanned Rockets flight path, so they hit around here and not central London.
So the first recorded mention of the pub was in 1790!
Hope this helps!
Regards.
Neil.
