Early days: what has become Surrey Street Market, close to Croydon’s church and the Archbishop’s palace, might have looked something like this in its earliest days in 1276
CROYDON CHRONICLES: As the town centre’s ancient market reaches its 750th anniversary, DAVID MORGAN charts its growth from its beginnings as Butchers Row, aided by the patronage of commercially-minded Archbishops of Canterbury
“Where there are two or three people gathered together in his name, God will be in their midst,” so prayed the Archbishop from his chapel in his palace in Croydon.
“Where there are two or three people gathered together in the streets, there is a business opportunity to be had,” the Archbishop’s advisor whispered in his ear.
Is this the way Croydon’s famous street market came into being?
In 1276 the Dominican monk, Robert Kilwardby, the first Archbishop of Canterbury from a mendicant background, obtained a royal charter for a market to be held in Croydon, not far from his bishop’s palace.
Fewer than 1,000 people lived in Croydon at that time, but in the countryside around the small town there were many farms growing crops and raising livestock.
And Kilwardby understood exactly what he owned. After his appointment in 1272 as Archbishop, Kilwardby conducted a survey – a stock-take, if you like; Domesday Books were all the rage in the 13th Century – of his demesne lands which provided him with food and income.
Pious eye on the prize: Archbishop Kilwardby established Croydon’s market
Of the three areas of Surrey which Archbishop Kilwardby held, Wimbledon paid him £42 per year, while Lambeth generated a mere £24. Croydon brought £80 into the Archbishop’s treasury. By some reckonings, £80 in the reign of King Edward I might be the equivalent of £6.4million in the reign of King Charles III.
The Archbishop saw an opportunity to boost his income: a market for trading crops and livestock, and other goods, too.
Edward I’s royal charter officially established Croydon as a recognised market town. The charter authorised one weekly market, initially to be held every Friday (although this would be changed by other Archbishops in the 14th Century).
The charter established a legal monopoly. It prohibited any rival markets from operating within a day’s travelling distance – about six or seven miles; it was slow-going on those rough medieval roads – and so protected Croydon’s commerce from competition.
The market would have had hides and leather, general provisions, and corn and grain for sale, while on Butchers Row, livestock and meat could be bought and traded.
As the lord of the manor, Archbishop Kilwardby benefited hugely, his bailiffs having the right to collect tolls, taxes and rents from the market stalls.
The market effectively shifted the centre of town from the flood plain of the River Wandle near the church eastwards to the higher ground, transforming Croydon into the dominant economic hub of north-east Surrey, a status it would retain well into the 20th Century.
Shifting centre: how the establishment of the market changed the focus of Croydon
As well as the weekly market, Kilwardby also obtained a grant to hold the St. Botolph Fair, a nine-day event starting on the eve of the saint’s day, May 16.
“A nine-day fair? Whatever is he thinking of? That’s the last thing we need!”
Most locals will have been unaware of what was going on in Europe. But the Archbishop and his advisors knew that fairs on the continent, linking saints’ days with fetes and feasting, were big business.
Less than 50 years after this first charter, in 1314 Archbishop Walter Reynolds, the treasurer to Edward II, announced two new markets for Croydon.
The first was for a Thursday market. The second was for a three-day fair, starting on St Matthew’s Day, September 21.
Bishop’s move: it was John de Stratford who established Croydon’s Saturday market in 1343
For centuries after, the fair was held in the nearby Fair Field under various guises, including the Cherry Fair and the Walnut Fair, until it was abolished in 1868.
Archbishop Reynolds was a regular visitor to Croydon’s episcopal palace. He made his most dramatic visit to Croydon in 1326. Walter Stapledon, the Bishop of Exeter and advisor to Edward II, had been dragged off his horse in Cheapside and brutally murdered by a gang. Stapledon’s severed head was sent to Edward’s estranged wife, Queen Isabella.
Fearing for his life, too, Archbishop Reynolds was in the group which fled London on horseback, seeking safety, first at his Croydon Palace before going on to Otford and finally his palace in Maidstone.
John de Stratford was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Pope John XXII in November 1333. De Stratford was another financially focused primate – he was Lord Chancellor to King Edward III – and he granted Croydon further markets and fairs in 1343.
He permitted a market on Saturdays and a fair on St John the Baptist’s day, June 24.
De Stratford, had a different financial focus. Medieval Christians were expected to make one significant pilgrimage in their lifetime. For many, this was a journey to Canterbury Cathedral, the site of Thomas Beckett’s shrine.
The most popular route, from Southwark to Kent, was written about in his Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. But many pilgrims chose a southern route to reach the holy shrine. Croydon wasn’t far from that route, and de Stratford set about trying to capture a share of that pilgrimage purse and encourage more passing trade with fairs and markets.
So while the local population was increasing, pilgrims on route to Canterbury would have swelled the numbers attending the markets significantly.
It was that 1343 grant of a Saturday market which expanded to a daily one, and which still remains today as Surrey Street Market.
Where were these early markets held?
Surrey Street Market today: trading in the same area for 750 years
The market in the 1300s is generally agreed to have been held between the Parish Church and the High Street. A triangle of development grew up between what is now Surrey Street, High Street and Crown Hill.
It has been suggested that in the centre of this market stood a cross, where eventually the market house was built. The first town hall of Croydon, built in the 16th Century, was a development of that old building. It was first called the Croydon Market House and it was here where the Croydon had its first Corn Exchange from 1566.
The fire at the Parish Church in 1867 robbed historians of the chance to see the memorial of Francis Tyrell “sometime citizen and grocer of London” and a great benefactor to Croydon.
When the old Market House was pulled down in 1807, they found a plaque which read: “This Market House was built at the cost and charges of Franck Tirrell, citizen and grocer of London, who was born in this town and departed this world Sept 1609.”
Some time in the late 1500s, Tyrrell had given £200 to build the Market House and £40 to “beautify the church and to have a new bell”, a total bequest equivalent to almost £1million today.
Changing places: this map shows Croydon in 1785. The triangular medieval marketplace, bounded by Butcher Row (now Surrey Street) to the west and the High Street to the east, is already largely infilled with buildings
The market cross was part of series of crosses which were significant for the town. One was in George Street, close by the Whitgift Hospital, as the almshouses were called back then. Another stood in the Pump Pail, south east of the town centre, a third stood on the site of the Running Horse Inn and the fourth was where the New Inn, South Croydon, was built.
Thomas Bouchier was another Archbishop of Canterbury who held high office of state, as Lord Chancellor. He was Archbishop from January 1455 until his death in 1486. His records held at Lambeth Palace identify one tradesman profiting from Croydon’s markets. In 1474, Thomas Warham, a carpenter, was paid 53s 4d “for making a stall in the market place”. It must have been a massive stall as 6,000 shingles, or slats of wood, were needed for the shelter over it.
Ruskin’s house: the Victorian critic and author said that his maternal grandmother had run this pub on Surrey Street
Stories about the market abound. Back in the 1820s, the Croydon town crier would announce that the stagecoach from Brighton had arrived, carrying fresh fish, and that the catch would be auctioned off in the market.
As there was often a lot of fish, the price was cheaper than the local fishmongers were charging. One of the traders did a deal with the Brighton fishermen, bought up their fish and then sold them himself.
We can discover a little of the old market area in Victorian times from John Ruskin’s autobiography Praeterita, which was published in the 1880s. Ruskin was a giant of the Victorian era, as an art critic, social commentator and author. His family had come from Croydon.
“Of my father’s family I know nothing, nor of my mother’s save that my maternal grandmother was the landlady of the Old King’s Head in Market Street, Croydon, and I wish she was alive again for I would paint her Simone Memmi’s King’s Head for a sign.”
In the 1880s the area was notorious as a sleeping place for tramps, but it still held its Saturday market “of the type familiar to Londoners”. The King’s Head still stood, a building of red brick, grimy with the dirt and smoke of centuries. but soon to be demolished and cleared away with all the other buildings for “improvements”.
Ruskin knew how difficult life could be in Croydon on a first-hand basis. His grandfather, when riding into Croydon, crushed his leg against a wall, and died, never recovering from the injury.
Stories about market life were collected by Vivien Lovett in her book Surrey Street Croydon, A Stall Story – A Century of Market Trading. Her family had a market stall for three generations. Bill Lovett, a son of Walter and Agnes Lovett, who were among the earlier traders at the modern market from 1897, painted a wonderful picture of Surrey Street Market in 1993 with the Lovett fruit and vegetable stall prominently featured.
The painting was presented to that year’s civic Mayor, Pat Hicks, and is now part of the council’s art collection.
Ancient and modern: Butchers Row, now Surrey Street, as photographed in 1895
The Lovetts chatted with the then Prince Charles when he visited Surrey Street in 1994.
A trader’s life was never easy, especially on a bitter winter’s day. During a cold snap in January 1911, hot potato and roast chestnut stalls did a roaring trade.
For a ha’penny you could buy a “hot tater” and warm both hands as well your stomach.
So many people, so many tales, so many memories. Such was the pulling power of Surrey Street Market in the 1970s that a weekly bus journey into Croydon from Mitcham and Morden was not uncommon to buy the family’s weekly fruit and veg.
It is reckoned that Surrey Street is among the oldest street markets still trading in England, if not the oldest. There can’t be many places where an economic seed has taken root and survived for such a great length of time.
David Morgan, pictured right, has been chronicling Croydon’s history for Inside Croydon for more than a decade. Morgan is a former Croydon headteacher, now the volunteer education officer at Croydon Minster, who offers tours or illustrated talks on the history around the Minster for local community groups
If you would like a group tour of Croydon Minster or want to book a school visit, then ring the Minster Office on 020 688 8104 or go to the website on www.croydonminster.org and use the contact page
Some previous articles by David Morgan:
- Minster’s ornate altar artwork that still retains its mysteries
- How Mary Care and Operation Crocus changed lives in Croydon
- 18th Century property pages that show growth of Croydon
- The church fire that consumed a thousand years of history
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