England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Croydon St John the Baptist

The Parish

The parish of Croydon lies in northeastern Surrey and forms a stretch of the county's border with neighbouring Kent. Croydon is located a little over 9 miles south of the City of London and stands on the A23 road which links London with Redhill & Crawley and onwards towards Brighton. Croydon is an early settlement with an origin in Saxon times with its centre based around the parish church and the Archbishop's Palace. By Domesday times Croydon was already large enough to comfortably sit within the top 20% of settlements by population. Croydon became a significant market town for its hinterland, a centre for trade and specialist skills, its hinterland was largely arable until the vast expansion of Greater London and Croydon's market specialised in the corn so produced. This growth of a market shifted the notional centre eastwards away from the church. By the 16th century Croydon had somehow acquired an unsavoury reputation being thought to be "an unpleasant, muddy place filled with charcoal burners from the surrounding woodlands". The 19th century saw Croydon engulfed by the spread of Greater London as by 1801 it only supported a population of 5,700, with the coming of railway lines from London and many others radiating to Epsom, Bromley and similar edge towns the population grew 10-fold by 1871 filling the Surrey countryside with urban development almost to the crest of the North Downs with Croydon a central transport hub for much of the south of Greater London. Further 20th century growth spurred by office developments and high-rise blocks have turned this small market town into an urban metropolis. Somewhere and mainly beneath the concrete and tarmac lies the River Wandle which drains the parish northwards into the Thames and thus to the North Sea. Croydon is sited mostly at close to 50 metres above the sea, it sits on the chalk dip-slope of the North Downs which rise steadily southwards to peak above the escarpment at 267 metres at Botley Hill. Croydon parish was a large parish covering close to 2,000 acres its population rose markedly during the transcript period such that by its end it stood around 16,000, the volume of marriages recorded in the parish church indicates an average of closer to 7,000 across the transcript period. As already mentioned Croydon was a large place by Domesday times, a holding of the Archbishop of Canterbury it could muster a formidable 38 ploughs backed by typical meadows & woodland and there was a mill making for a wealthy holding indeed.

The Church

St John's church sits on Church Street in the old quarter of the town and today is designated as Croydon Minster. Sadly the church we see today is not the venue for these marriages as that church was destroyed by a devastating fire in 1867. Such was the pride in the original church that it was decided to rebuild to the original design with only an extra-extension eastwards modifying the layout from the original church. The medieval church had been funded by the succession of archbishops through the 1th and 15th centuries and was as Pevsner notes "a Perpendicular building on the grandest scale". Copying the design has at least reserved the dignity of the parish church in a town where so much "old" has been torn down. Church Street has a few short-term parking slots, otherwise a car park is the wise choice. To the south of the church stands a broad grassy area giving commanding views, other angles suffer the usual inhibitions caused by urban proximity.