Tom Anderson wrote:

With the present platform layout, it would have to have been a
bay platform, but one which would have received trains from the Sutton
direction, which seems unlikely.

Does it? There were semifast trains from Guildford which terminated at West
Croydon until a few years ago.

Bonus Croydon query: apparently, on the tram line west of Church
Street, which splits into branches to West Croydon and Reeves Corner,
the junction is right after the stop, with a stretch maybe 100 metres
of interlaced track before the branches diverge. Any idea why?

50 metres. I was told, by someone who should know, that the reason is to
keep the points in a tram-only area, to protect them from the weight of
lorries and to protect tramway workmen from traffic. However, looking at an
aerial photo, this doesn't seem right. It looks more likely that they didn't
want cars coming out of Drummond Road to be blocked by trams waiting for the
points to change. Or maybe they didn't want trams to have to wait for the
points to change, so they put the points right at the stop where the tram
would wait anyway (although if that were the case, surely they would just
put the transponder by the stop, and put the actual points at the
divergence).

In Amsterdam the interlaced track before junctions is sometimes long enough
to hold three or four trams. This is so that several trams can sort
themselves onto the right tracks while the lights are red, and then shoot
through the junction in various directions when the lights are green,
without having to waste green-time waiting for points to change. I don't
think that is the issue here though.