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St John the Baptist's Church, Croydon
Croydon, St John the Baptist is Surrey's largest large parish church in a sizeable churchyard, and several historic neighbours in keeping with it. This building and the Archbishops' Palace seem stuck down a long side street with the ring road for company on one side, lots of tarmac and paving, and a churchyard now more a small park with benches. Many trees surround it to the south and west, in an attempt to hide it from view it seems - it hardly features in any view from elsewhere, although the whole north front is open to a tarmaced square, it is the one behind the main road, with the scrag-end of the shopping centre and the tram stop. Far from being the spiritual and historic centre of the town it all feels a rather apologetic backwater; yet it still feels like Surrey rather than as now, absorbed into Greater London. Proposed as the cathedral for a new diocese in the late 1960s, it was not as big as I remembered it (probably because I was much much smaller on my last visit aged 10!). The church suffered near destruction by fire in 1867 and was rebuilt by Scott supposedly a replica of what was there before, a proud 15th century structure. The exterior shows the two significant medieval survivors, the tower and the south porch, but you would be hard pressed to recognise anything which has not been retooled. A photograph of the interior of St John the Baptist's Church is also available. (Commentary provided by Phil Draper) |
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© Copyright Phil Draper, GENUKI and Contributors 2000-2007, &c.
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Image contributed by Phil Draper from 13th November 2004.
URL of this page: http://www.wishful-thinking.org.uk/genuki/SRY/Croydon/StJohn.html
[Created 13 Nov 2004. Last updated 4 Sep 2007 - 11:33 by Rosemary Lockie]