Old Palace Croydon: southern range including long gallery

Summary

The southern range of the Old Palace comprises part of a high-status apartment built in around 1400 under Archbishop Arundel, forming the western end of this range, later connected to the eastern apartments by a long gallery, built from around 1539 to complete the southern courtyard. The range was altered in the late 16th century, with a southern stair bay added, and then refronted to the south under Archbishop Wake in the early 18th century. Additional changes relate to domestic use in the 1810s and then restoration and some remodelling by the school in stages in the 20th century and in 2020.

Reasons for Designation

The southern range including the long gallery of the Old Palace at Croydon is listed at Grade I for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as an important example of a long gallery of the late 1530s with elaborate joinery and fittings, integrating historic framing and other fabric from earlier building campaigns and work of distinction from the late C16, mid-C18 and early 1800s;
* as a major element of the architectural evolution of the Old Palace and its plan around two courtyards, demonstrating through its distinct phases of development the enlargement and aggrandisement of the complex from around 1400 through to the C18;
* the long gallery is the only remaining major architectural addition to the site of the mid-C16, built under Archbishop Cranmer to emulate the earlier galleries at the palaces at Otford and Knole.

Historic interest:

* as a key part of an important and extensive archiepiscopal manor with standing elements dating back to the C12. The Old Palace is the best-surviving example of a medieval palace of the Archbishops of Canterbury, built on the route between Lambeth and Canterbury to serve as a residence suitable for the Archbishop’s retinue and frequent royal visitations;
* for its strong association with successive Archbishops of Canterbury, to whom distinct campaigns of building work are attributed.

Group value:

* with the other seven Grade I-listed buildings forming the Old Palace complex and the adjacent Grade I-listed Croydon Minster (Church of St John the Baptist).

History

The Old Palace at Croydon formed one of a chain of great houses to be occupied by archbishops and their retinues when travelling between Canterbury and Lambeth. The archiepiscopal manors were established to allow the journey to be divided into easy stages of around 20 miles, with the route proceeding via Charing, Maidstone, Otford, and (after 1450) Knole. The Old Palace at Croydon was the final staging post on this route towards London and it became one of the largest and most important sites of the archiepiscopal estate. The palace site is likely to date back to the 8th century or early 9th century, with a ‘monasterium’ recorded from 809, at which time a Royal Council was assembled at Croydon. By 880, the site certainly constituted part of the endowment of the Archbishop of Canterbury, becoming an important part of the estate in the late-Saxon period. The palace came to be favoured by archbishops as a summer residence from the C13, by which time it had an early hall, private chambers, kitchens and surrounding grounds. With the adjacent church and village, the area became known as Old Croydon, distinct from New Croydon, which developed to the east as a commercial centre along a main route to London, receiving a market charter in 1276.

The Old Palace at Croydon is an extraordinarily complex site of multiple phases; indeed, almost every generation since the C12 has adapted the palace buildings to some degree to meet their evolving demands. A series of timber buildings centred on a hall built from the 9th century onwards appear to have preceded the stone and brick structures. The evidence indicates that rebuilding in masonry began with the private chambers during the C12, towards the western edge of the palace site, with subsequent development suggesting that that the principal early buildings - the private chamber, hall and kitchens - were strung together from west to east. The later C14 saw a surge in building at the archbishops’ estates, recorded in some cases as repairing damage following social and political unrest across the country culminating in the Peasant’s Revolt of 1381, when Archbishop Sudbury was seized and beheaded in London and the archepiscopal property was attacked. There is no specific record of an attack on the Old Palace at Croydon, though the heightened building activity from this time may have been spurred by these events.

The main standing elements of the Old Palace were built from the mid-C14 to the late C15, by which time the manor was highly regarded, acquiring high-status accommodation suitable for royal visitations. The scheme appears to have begun with an early iteration of the great chamber above its undercroft in the second quarter of the C14 for Archbishop Stratford (1333-1348), and with the hall, probably begun under Archbishop Courtenay (1381-1396) and completed by Archbishop Stafford (1443-1452), whose throne partially survives. The later C14 and early C15 saw a major phase of building by Archbishop Arundel (1396-1397 and then 1399-1414), who completed the great chamber in its present form, probably extending accommodation to the south-west, possibly the site of an earlier private chapel or oratory. The lower section of what was likely at that date to be a chapel (since the existing chapel was built above it) also dates from the later C14. The upper part was then rebuilt in the mid-C15 following its partial collapse. In around 1500, Archbishop Morton (1486-1500) extended the chapel and private chambers westwards, with a west range built to link them. The east range closing the south court appears to have been built at around the same time.

Despite the closure of many religious houses under Henry VIII, the Old Palace at Croydon was retained while other archiepiscopal estates were sold or reduced, and perhaps in response to this loss Archbishop Cranmer added a long gallery, built in 1538-1539, to complete the plan that fundamentally exists today, with enclosed north and south courts. The manor was first described as a ‘palatium’, or palace, by John Whitgift (1583-1604) in the later C16, although after the Reformation its popularity waned. Henry VIII reputedly refused to stay at Croydon claiming it to be bad for his health on account of its low-lying position and waterlogged condition at this stage. Both church and palace were built on an island site and until the early C19 the palace site was surrounded by water, with fishponds, ornamental ponds and waterways.

In the C17, Archbishop Laud (1633-1645) committed to remodelling the archiepiscopal chapels in line with his religious tenets, and at the Old Palace the raised pew, stalls and altar rails are attributed to him. During the Commonwealth (1649-1660), Parliament seized the site and sold it to Sir William Brereton. However, the Old Palace was reinstated as archiepiscopal property in 1660, perhaps a reflection of its importance, and remained so until the later C18. On the restoration of the monarchy, Archbishop Juxon (1660-1663) set about restoring the buildings, particularly the chapel which was significantly reconfigured during this time and likely continued by his immediate successor, Archbishop Sheldon (1663-1677).

Although some improvements were made by Archbishop Wake (1715-1737), who spent frequent summers at the Palace, and by Archbishop Herring (1747-1757), who spent £6000 on the buildings and gardens, by the later C18 the Old Palace was less popular as a residence and had fallen into a poor state of repair. In 1780 it was sold to Abraham Pitches and then subsequently to Sam Starey, becoming a calico printing and bleaching factory. The site was industrialised, land was sold, buildings were adapted, subdivided and used for multiple purposes, including as lodgings. The wider complex of the palace was significantly truncated and all of the northern ancillary buildings of the outer court were lost during this period. The northern stables and the gatehouse were largely demolished in 1806, followed by the western lodgings in 1808 as part of the expansion of the churchyard (marked by the present brick boundary wall from this date). The service range which had been connected to the hall was pulled down in 1810, which ultimately contributed to the collapse of the east wall of the Great Hall in 1830. The final remaining vestige of the outer court was the eastern range of lodgings running along what is now Old Palace Road, which remained in use for most of this period but was finally demolished in 1880.

In order to save the Old Palace from demolition in 1887, the site was bought by the Duke of Newcastle, a follower of the Oxford Movement, who gave it to the Anglican Sisters of Mercy to secure its future for religious purposes. The Sisters established a small school in 1889 that was recognised as a higher-grade elementary school in 1892 and in 1904 as a secondary school. From the outset, the Sisters embarked on a programme to restore the neglected buildings, employing the architect Sir Banister Fletcher in 1905 to work on the chapel restoration. After the Second World War it became a Direct Grant Grammar School and new school buildings were added in phases to the south-west of the site. In 1974 it became an independent school, passing in 1994 to the Whitgift Foundation. In September 2023, the Whitgift Foundation announced the decision to close the school permanently by August 2025.

HISTORY OF THE SOUTHERN RANGE AND LONG GALLERY
The earliest part of the south range formed part of the south-western extension of the Croydon apartments under Archbishop Arundel (1397-1414). The primary purpose of the new block was probably to extend the archbishop's first-floor apartment, providing additional private rooms beyond the audience hall. The works of this phase clearly sought to aggrandise the house, providing more extensive accommodation suitable for receiving visitors and performing the archbishop’s public duties. The private entrance for the range was probably in the south wall and this would have led to the extant spiral staircase. Arundel’s extension of the private apartments formed an L-plan wing comprising two compartments on each floor, with the spiral stair clasped in the angle between them (the stair and northern room being separately covered under the west range of the south court List entry). The southern rooms were oriented east-west, which was used to support historic interpretations of this part of the range having been built as Archbishop Courtenay's chapel in the late C14. However, the relatively small size of this structure, along with the provision of a garderobe at its west end, and the fact it belongs to the same era of building as the more obvious candidate to the north, all counter this theory. Nonetheless, a small oratory partitioned off the east end of the southern first floor room remains a possible early function (Drury, July 2020, p28), and this may be what was referred to in Pugin’s account of a lost smaller chapel ‘for the archbishop’s private devotions’ (Pugin, 1838, p29).

The clearest evidence of the date of this part of the range comes from the upper floor structure of substantial, close-set joists spanning from wall to wall. These do not appear to be reused, and dendrochronology has produced a felling range of 1372-1408, therefore placing them, and by extension the connected northern portion of the range (which clasps the first phase of the guard chamber as well as the C12 fragment to its west), in this first phase of rebuilding of around 1400. Relatively early alterations to this first part of the range appear to have been prompted by the rebuilding of the upper part of the great hall and its roof under Archbishop Stafford (1443-1452). In the south elevation a new doorway at the west end was inserted in place of the probable original entrance (set within the later projecting entrance bay). This door surround is now heavily eroded but it is similar to the doorway in the west wall of the hall. A window directly above the south door (now in the roof void of the room above) has a similar hood mould and these seem to be contemporary interventions made to update the appearance of the south elevation in response to the new hall. There was probably a second bay of contemporary windows inserted to the east of the doorway, but rebuilding of the rest of the wall has removed any evidence.

The remainder of the southern range was very probably under construction in 1539 (roof timbers in this range being dated by dendrochronology to 1538-1539), this connecting the western end of around 1400 with the 1490s east range to the south court, forming a courtyard on the south side of the guard chamber. This was therefore commissioned early in the archiepiscopacy of Thomas Cranmer (1533-1555). In 1538, Archbishop Cranmer had been forced to transfer the palaces of Otford and Knole to Henry VIII. Cranmer’s predecessor, Archbishop Warham (1503-1532) had built fashionable new long galleries of unrivalled scale at Knole (in around 1518) and then at Otford during the 1520s. Cranmer appears to have sought to emulate these galleries at Croydon.

The gallery was extended through the upper part of the earlier western range. In so doing, the inner ends of the two best apartments in the house were connected; this being the classic position of a long gallery later in the century. The building of the gallery effectively completed the distinctive plan of the house at Croydon, of a linear spine with two small flanking courtyards beyond the hall. This structure was mostly timber-framed and five bays long, set between the existing ranges. The lower storey could have been treated as a loggia, with large openings on one, or possibly both, sides, but this would have been enclosed in the C18. At first-floor level the structure took the form of a continuous long gallery, extending through to the west end of the range, necessitating the demolition of much of the upper part of the southern end. There would originally have been an oriel window to the centre of the north elevation, potentially with a corresponding window to the south. The only early subsequent addition to the gallery was the projecting enclosure added to the west end late in the C16, which almost certainly contained a stair to the garden in succession to the medieval spiral stair. The roof timbers of this structure yielded a felling date range of around 1587-1614, with the probability being that the timbers were felled towards the end of the C16. The surviving gallery panelling, although reset in the C18, is probably contemporary with this addition. The work appears to have been prompted by visits from Queen Elizabeth I, who stayed at the Old Palace on several occasions, as the guest of Archbishops Parker (1559-1575) and Whitgift (1583-1604).

The final major phase of work at the Old Palace was in the C18, attributed to Archbishop Wake (1716-1737), and included an orangery (later demolished) built to the back of the kitchen offices, together with much of the formal garden layout shown in C18 drawings, which were probably part of the same plan. The main structural work was focused on the 'rebuilding the great gallery leading to the garden', which Wake is specifically credited with (Ducarel, 1783, p40). The south front of the gallery is in contemporary red brick, with a rubbed brick band course and segmental arched heads to the windows, which correspond with this attribution.

The sale of the palace by the archbishopric led to the loss of the outer courts and damage through industrial use. But the domestic quarters, particularly the eastern and southern outer ranges, were modernised, particularly where they served temporary use as justices’ lodgings into the 1810s. Some of the details have since been lost, but the eastern ground-floor room retains reeded architraves and panelling seeming to date to this period. The ‘drawing room’, as the principal ground-floor room was termed, had French doors added as part of work of around this time. The 1880s survey plans indicate that the southern range remained in 'domestic' use, so presumably it served this purpose throughout the period, therefore saving it from the attrition and alteration wrought on the industrialised adjacent west range of the south court.

Following the acquisition of the site and its transfer to the Sisters of Mercy in 1887, some restoration of the south range was undertaken to bring it into school use. Masonry under 'arches' beneath the long gallery is recorded as having been rebuilt in 1933 (Drury, July 2020, p58). The reconstruction of the west end of the gallery including the room to the east of the covered passage is dated to 1962 (Hilton, 1987, p67). The southern projecting bay, added in the late C16, was also heavily restored as part of work in this period. The long gallery had been partitioned into two rooms under the school, but this was removed to restore the long gallery to its original length in 2020.

Details

Part of a high-status apartment built in around 1400 under Arundel, forming the western end of the range, later connected to the eastern range by a long gallery, built from around 1539 to complete the southern courtyard. Range altered in the late C16, with a southern stair bay added, and then refronted to the south under Wake in the early C18. Additional changes relate to domestic use in the C19 and then restoration and some remodelling by the school in stages in the C20-C21.

MATERIALS: timber-framed with brick walling principally of C18 date (to the south), with some red-brown brick of the 1490s reused to the north.

PLAN: the south range of the south court is a two-storey, east-west range housing a long gallery at its principal, first-floor level, with a projecting two-storey stair bay or closet wing at its western end. The gallery was built above an existing ground floor at its western end, where it is integrated with the earlier north-south range of around 1400.

EXTERIOR: the south elevation, in six first-floor bays, is faced in early to mid-C18 red brick with vitrified headers in Flemish bond and with a continuous storey band. The ground floor has a mix of six-over-six pane sashes in flush frames and a full-height casement. The western two bays have an arcade rebuilt in 1933 in red brick with tile dressings leading to a covered passage. First floor windows, lighting the gallery, are segmental-headed six-over-six pane sashes. There is a similar first-floor window in the west elevation.

At the west end is a lower, gabled wing, in exposed, slender timber framing but in patched brick or brick cladding on its west return. The frame incorporates reused elements that are not in their original configuration. Openings have been altered, but the ground floor has a two-light, south-facing timber casement and three-light timber casement above, both with leaded lights. There is a small ground floor light on the east return. In the angle at first floor is a canted window clad in horizontal boards. The north elevation is altered and partly enclosed by other buildings added in the C19 (part of the extensions to the eastern range of the south court), but the western section is in red-brown brick in English bond of a type elsewhere associated with Morton.

INTERIOR: the gallery is lined in full-height oak panelling on the north and south walls, beneath a deep moulded cornice, breaking forward over the windows and at the chimney breast, where the overmantel is in horizontal panels. It has a simple classical chimneypiece with plain pilasters and a dentil cornice and a replica cast-iron grate. The panelling principally dates from the late C16, but this was reset in the C18 as part of Wake’s remodelling. To the east of the chimneybreast is a wide, blind section with a four-centre arched moulded timber head, likely a former oriel window. Immediately adjacent to it, above the current doorway, a moulded architrave with blank mortices in the lintel suggests a former window. Sash windows have panelled linings. Only the west end of the range's south wall was retained above first floor level as part of the building of the gallery and this is partly preserved within the roof void of the small projecting block. The gallery ceiling is a four-centred arch vault formed in plaster. The spine beam and ceiling joists are a primary element of the nine-bay roof, formed with queen-strut trusses. The coving is also primary, being formed on brackets affixed to the ceiling joists. Until 2020 the gallery was subdivided and the western section consequently has new panelling to match the eastern half of the room; the position of the former partition remains marked on the wall, to the west of the fireplace.

The ground floor, subdivided and clad internally, has transverse beams with empty mortices. Little of the timber structure at ground-floor level survives, and what does is embedded in later walling. A splayed opening in what was formerly the external south wall remains and a probable late-medieval timber doorcase and door is retained within the late-C16 stair enclosure. The stairs have long-since been removed here. The eastern ground-floor room retains reeded architraves and panelling seeming to date from the early C19 when the rooms here served as lodgings. The ‘drawing room’, as the principal ground-floor room was termed, had French doors added to its south side, which also date to the early 1800s.

Sources

Books and journals
Cherry, B, Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: London 2: South (1983), pp212-214
Some Account of the Town, Church and Archiepiscopal Palace of Croydon in Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica, ,Vol. XII, (1783), pp30-67, Appendix 1 (Extracts from the Archiepiscopal Registers at Lambeth), pp1-26
Pugin, A, Examples of Gothic Architecture Volume 1 (1838), pp26-30, Plates 38-42
Emery, A, Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales 1300-1500, Volume 3: Southern England (2006), pp329-333

Websites
'Croydon: Introduction and Croydon Palace', in Malden, HE (ed), A History of the County of Surrey: Volume 4 (1912), accessed 24 March 2025 from https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/surrey/vol4/pp205-217

Other
Lea, R, Observations at the Archbishop’s Palace, Croydon, 1987 to 1996 (English Heritage, 2004)
Drury McPherson Partnership, Croydon Archiepiscopal Palace, The Evolution of the Buildings (July 2020)
Drury McPherson Partnership, Old Palace Croydon, The Chapel, Heritage Impact Assessment (February 2020)
Hilton, K, The Old Palace School, Centenary History 1889-1989 (1989)
The Heritage Advisory, Old Palace School, Croydon, Conservation Management Plan (January 2016)
Arnold, A, Howard R, The Archiepiscopal Palace (The ‘Old Palace’) John Whitgift School, Croydon, London, Tree-Ring Analysis of Timbers (February 2020)
Drawings of The Archepiscopal Palace, Croydon c1880 (Society of Antiquaries, B.P. Surrey, no. 53)
Oswald, A, 'The Old Palace, Croydon, Surrey: A Former Residence of the Archbishops of Canterbury', Country Life, (April 1965), pp806-810, 876-880

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