Croydon Rectory Court

Corporate body

Croydon Rectory Court

1550

The manor of Croydon Rectory gained its name from the fact that it was attached to the rectory of Croydon. The rectory was held by Bermondsey Abbey from 1390/1 until 1538, and so the manor also became known as Bermondsey, Barmondsey, or Barnsby Hold. After the dissolution of Bermondsey Abbey in 1538, Croydon rectory and its manor came into the Kings hands; and in 1550 were granted by Edward VI to Thomas Walsingham (son and heir of Sir Edmund Walsingham of Chislehurst). The Walsingham family retained them until the mid-eighteenth century, and therefore for the period of both of these rolls. Sir Thomas (as he became) died in 1584, and was succeeded first by his elder son, Edward Walsingham (d1589); and then by a younger son, Sir Thomas Walsingham (d1630). The manor then passed to Sir Thomass son Thomas (d1669); to Thomass son Francis; to Francis younger brother Thomas (d1691); and to Thomass son James (d1728). It was subsequently divided into three portions, but the three were eventually reunited in the hands of the Viscounts Montagu. In 1793, the Montagus sold the manor to Robert Harris (d1807); whose trustees sold it to Alexander Caldcleugh, in whose family it remained until the second half of the nineteenth century.

The lands of the manor lay in the area bounded by North End, London Road, Handcroft Road, Pitlake and Church Street: they therefore included Parsons Mead (the glebe land of the Rectory) and Broad Green common. For the later development of the estate, see RCW Cox, Urban Development and Redevelopment in Croydon 1835-1940 (Doctoral Thesis, University of Leicester, 1970),pp 22-93.

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