GROWTH OF CROYDON 109 



pretend to say, and he would be rash who did. The 

 ancient history of the place is bound up with the 

 archbishopric of Canterbury, for the manor was given 

 by the Conqueror to Lanfranc, who is supposed to 

 have been the founder of the palace, which still stands 

 next the parish church, and was a residence of the 

 Primate until 1750. 



By that time Croydon had begun to grow, and not 

 only had the old buildings become inconvenient, but 

 a joopulation surrounded those dignified churchmen, 

 who, after the manner of archbishops, retired to a more 

 secluded home. They not only flew from contact with 

 the people, whose spiritual needs might surely have 

 anchored them to the spot, but by the promotion of 

 the Enclosure Act of 1797 they robbed the people of 

 the far-spreading common lands in the parish. 

 Croydon by that time numbered between five and 

 six thousand inhabitants, and was thought quite a 

 considerable place. A hundred and ten years have 

 added a hundred and twenty-five thousand more to 

 that considerable po]:>ulation, and still Croydon grows. 



In those times the woodlands closely encircled the 

 little town. In 1620 they came up to the parish 

 church and the palace, which was then said to be a 

 " very obscure and darke place." Archbishop Abbot 

 " expounded " it by felling the timber. It was in 

 those times surrounded bv a moat, fed by the head- 

 spring of the Wandle ; but the moat is gone, and the 

 first few vards of the Wandle are nowadavs made to 

 flow underground. 



The explorer of the Brighton Road who comes, by 

 whatever method of progression he pleases, into 

 Croydon, finds its busy centre at what is still called 

 North End. The name survives long after the 

 circumstances that conferred it have vanished into 

 the limbo of forgotten things. It zvas the North end 

 of the town, and here, on what was then a country 

 site, the good Archbishop Whitgift founded his 

 Hospital of the Holy Trinity in 1593. It still stands, 

 although sorely threatened in these last few years ; 



