The High Street of Croydon really is high, for it occupies a ridge and looks down on the right hand on the Old Town and the valley of the Wandle, or “Wandel.” The centre of Croydon has, in fact, been removed from down below, where the church and palace first arose, on the line of the old Roman road, to this ridge, where within the historic period the High Street was only a bridle-path avoiding the little town in the valley.

The High Street, incidentally the Brighton Road as well, is nowadays a very modern and commercial-looking thoroughfare, and owes that appearance, and its comparative width, to the works effected under the Croydon Improvement Act of 1890. Already Croydon, given a Mayor and Town Council in 1883, had grown so greatly that the narrow street was incapable of accommodating the traffic; while the low-lying, and in other senses low, quarter of Market Street and Middle Row offended the dignity and self-respect of the new-born Corporation. The Town Hall stood at that time in the High Street: a curious example of bastard classic architecture, built in 1808. Near by was the “Greyhound,” an old coaching and posting inn, with one of those picturesque gallows signs straddling across the street, of which those of the “George” at Crawley and the “Greyhound” at Sutton are surviving examples. That of the “Cock” at Sutton disappeared in 1898, and the similar signs of the “Crown,” opposite the Whitgift Hospital, and of the “King’s Arms” vanished many years ago.

The “Greyhound” was the principal inn of Croydon in the old times. The first mention of it is found in 1563, the parish register of that year containing the entry, “Nicholas Vode (Wood) the son of the good wyfe of the grewond was buryed the xxix day of January.” The voluminous John Taylor mentions it in 1624 as one of the two Croydon inns, and it was the headquarters of General Fairfax in 1645, when Cromwell vehemently disputed with him under its roof on the conduct of the campaign, urging more severe measures.

Following upon the alteration, the “Greyhound” was rebuilt. Its gallows sign disappeared at the same time, when a curious point arose respecting the post supporting it on the opposite pavement. Erected in the easy-going times when such a matter was nothing more than a little friendly and neighbourly concession, the square foot of ground it occupied had by lapse of time become freehold property, and as such it was duly scheduled and purchased by the Improvements Committee. A sum of £400 was claimed for freehold and loss of advertisement, and eventually £350 was paid.

I suppose there can be no two opinions about the slums cleared away under that Improvement Act; but they were very picturesque, if also very dirty and tumble-down: all nodding gables, cobblestoned roads, and winding ways. I sorrow, in the artistic way, for those slums, and in the literary way for a house swept away at the same time, sentimentally associated with John Ruskin. It was the inn kept by his maternal grandmother, and is referred to in “PrÆterita”:

“... Of my father’s ancestors I know nothing, nor of my mother’s more than that my maternal grandmother was the landlady of the ‘Old King’s Head’ in Market Street, Croydon; and I wish she were alive again, and I could paint her Simone Memmi’s ‘King’s Head’ for a sign.” And he adds: “Meantime my aunt had remained in Croydon and married a baker.... My aunt lived in the little house still standing—or which was so four months ago[7]—the fashionablest in Market Street, having actually two windows over the shop, in the second story” (sic).

There are slums at Croydon even now, for Croydon is a highly civilised progressive place, and slums and slum populations are the exclusive products of civilisation and progress, and a very severe indictment of them. But they are new slums; those poverty-stricken districts created ad hoc, which seem more hopeless than the ancient purlieus, and appear to be as inevitable to and as inseparable from modern great towns as a hem to a handkerchief.

The old quarter of Croydon began to fall into the slum condition at about the period of Croydon’s first expansion, when the ?? p????? impinged too closely upon the archiepiscopal precincts, and their Graces, neglecting their obvious duty in the manner customary to Graces spiritual and temporal, retired to the congenial privacy of Addington.

Here stands the magnificent parish church of Croydon; its noble tower of the Perpendicular period, its body of the same style, but a restoration, after the melancholy havoc caused by the great fire of 1867. It is one of the few really satisfactory works of Sir Gilbert Scott; successful because he was obliged to forget his own particular fads and to reproduce exactly what had been destroyed. Another marvellous replica is the elaborate monument of Archbishop Whitgift, copied exactly from pictures of that utterly destroyed in the fire. Archbishop Sheldon’s monument, however, still remains in its mutilated condition, with a scarred and horrible face calculated to afflict the nervous and to be remembered in their dreams.

The vicars of Croydon have in the long past been a varied kind. The Reverend William Clewer, who held the living from 1660 until 1684, when he was ejected, was a “smiter,” an extortioner, and a criminal; but Roland Phillips, a predecessor by some two hundred years, was something of a seer. Preaching in 1497, he declared that “we” (the Roman Catholics) “must root out printing, or printing will root out us.” Already, in the twenty years of its existence, it had undermined superstition, and was presently to root out the priests, even as he foresaw.

Unquestionably the sight best worth seeing in Croydon is that next-door neighbour of the church, the Archbishop’s Palace. Comparatively few are those who see it, because it is just a little way off the road and is private property and shown only by favour and courtesy. When the Archbishops deserted the place it was sold under the Act of Parliament of 1780 and became the factory of a calico-printer and a laundry. Some portions were demolished, the moat was filled up, the “minnows and the springs of Wandel” of which Ruskin speaks, were moved on, and mean little streets quartered the ground immediately adjoining. But, although all those facts are very grim and grey, it remains true that the old palace is a place very well worth seeing.

It was again sold in 1887, and purchased by the Duke of Newcastle, who made it over to the so-called “Kilburn Sisters,” who maintain it as a girls’ school. I do not know, nor seek to inquire, by what right, or with what object, the “Sisters” who conduct the school affect the dress of Roman Catholics, while professing the tenets of the Church of England; but under their rule the historic building has been well treated, and the chapel and other portions repaired, with every care for their interesting antiquities, under the eyes of expert and jealous anti-restorers. The Great Hall, chief feature of the place, still maintains its fifteenth century chestnut hammerbeam roof and armorial corbels; the Long Gallery, where Queen Elizabeth danced, the State bedroom where she slept, the Guard Room, quarters of the Archbishops’ bodyguard, are all existing; and the Chapel, with oaken bench-ends bearing the sculptured arms of Laud, of Juxon, and others, and the Archbishops’ pew, has lately been brought back to decent condition. Here, too, is the exquisite oaken gallery at the western end, known as “Queen Elizabeth’s Pew.”That imperious queen and indefatigable tourist paid several visits to Croydon Palace, and her characteristic insolence and freedom of speech were let loose upon the unoffending wife of Archbishop Parker when she took her leave. “Madam,” she said, “I may not call you; mistress I am ashamed to call you; and so I know not what to call you; but, however, I thank you.” It seems evident that the daughter of Henry the Eighth had, despite her Protestantism, an historic preference for a celibate clergy.