 With a building like Croydon Palace there are
more questions than answers: as one surveys its complex history, the architectural styles it
incorporates and the numerous alterations to which it has been subject, every brick, window and
beam seems to present a challenge. As any guide will admit, what we know for certain about the
place can be told quite easily: what we wish we knew - well, that would take rather
longer ... |
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One way to get answers to serious questions is of course to ask an expert, and that's exactly
what we did this summer when we invited Tim Tatton-Brown, one of the most eminent
architectural historians in the country, to carry out a survey for us. Mr. Tatton-Brown is probably
the leading authority today on ecclesiastical buildings, and we were both delighted and
honoured that he should come and spend a couple of days at OP in July. And he was able, not
only to answer some of our most pressing questions, but impress upon us just what a significant
and, indeed, unique building we have on our hands! |
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Speaking after the completion of his survey
to a group of Friends and representatives from the school, the Foundation and the local history
society, Mr Tatton-Brown observed that Croydon is the only one of the residences owned by
the medieval and Tudor archbishops to have survived with its Great Hall intact. Halls at many
other residences were sacked and often demolished during the Civil War when, after the
execution of Laud, the post of archbishop was abolished and thereafter they have either
disappeared altogether or, like at Canterbury, lie in ruins. The Great Hall at Croydon, which
dates in its present form from around 1450 and still has its original oak roof, was 'an amazing
survival' said Mr Tatton-Brown.
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The earliest structure on the site, Mr Tatton-Brown pointed out, would have been a church, almost certainly on the site of the
present Parish Church adjacent to the Palace. As he noted in
his history of the palace of Lambeth, there is a record of a minster at Croydon as early as
809AD when King Coenwulf of Mercia held his witan there in the time of
Archbishop Wulfred. In the 13th century an aisled hall would have gone up, with a buttery, pantry
and kitchen to the east (where Old Palace Road is now). The kitchen would have been
free-standing, though in the 13th century they were not joined to the main building because of
their tendency to burn down! |
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The present Undercroft also dates from the
13th century and has some early 12th century chevrons in its walls. These may have come from
an earlier building on the site. There was a chapel on the site in the 13th century,
built above ground level to emphasise its importance. The present chapel is a century later, and
the rooms linking it to the main house date from the time of Henry V11's archbishop, Cardinal Morton.
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| Mr Tatton-Brown left us some ideas for follow-up work,
including researching at Lambeth Palace
Library for surviving dilapidation surveys. These contain inventories compiled when,
following the death of an archbishop, his successor went to law to determine what he was
owed by the deceased's executors. He also recommended that we obtain the
services of a
dendrochronologist, who, with the aid of computer-enhanced technology, could determine
the year and even the season when the tree from which a beam was hewn was felled
(and the rough location of the forest).
This is an expensive process, but one worth considering at some future date. |
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Overall this proved an absorbing exercise.
Those of us who presume to guide the public around Old Palace will go back to our notes and
make some revisions, able now to underline even more the importance of the building we have
the privilege of describing.
AWB |
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Also by Tim Tatton-Brown
Great Cathedrals of Britain: An Archaeological History
BBC Books 1988.
