Old Palace Croydon: southern range including long gallery

Old Palace Croydon: Southern Range Including Long Gallery

This is part of a high-status apartment complex forming the southern range of the south court. The western end of the range dates to around 1400 and was built under Arundel. A long gallery was added from around 1539 onwards, extending eastward and connecting to the eastern range to complete the southern courtyard. The range underwent significant alteration in the late 16th century with the addition of a southern stair bay, and was refronted to the south in the early 18th century under Wake. Further changes followed during domestic use in the 19th century, and the building underwent restoration and remodelling by the school in stages during the 20th and 21st centuries.

Materials and Construction

The building is timber-framed with brick walling principally of 18th-century date on its south side. The north side retains some red-brown brick of the 1490s that was reused during later construction.

Plan and Layout

The southern range of the south court is two storeys tall, running east to west. Its principal feature is a long gallery on the first floor, with a projecting two-storey stair bay or closet wing at its western end. The gallery was built above an existing ground floor at its western end, where it integrates with the earlier north-south range dating from around 1400.

Exterior

The south elevation is six bays wide and faced in early to mid-18th-century red brick laid in Flemish bond with vitrified headers and a continuous storey band. The ground floor contains a mix of six-over-six pane sashes in flush frames and a full-height casement. The western two bays feature an arcade that was rebuilt in 1933 in red brick with tile dressings, leading to a covered passage. The first-floor windows, which light the gallery, are segmental-headed six-over-six pane sashes, with a similar window in the west elevation.

At the western end stands a lower, gabled wing with exposed, slender timber framing, though its west return is patched in brick or brick cladding. The frame incorporates reused elements not in their original configuration. The ground floor has a two-light, south-facing timber casement and a three-light timber casement above, both with leaded lights. A small ground-floor light is present on the east return. At first-floor level, a canted window in the angle is clad in horizontal boards. The north elevation has been substantially altered and partly enclosed by 19th-century extensions to the eastern range, though its western section retains red-brown brick in English bond of a type associated with Morton elsewhere in the building.

Interior

The gallery features full-height oak panelling on its north and south walls beneath a deep moulded cornice that breaks forward over the windows and at the chimney breast, where the overmantel is formed in horizontal panels. A simple classical chimneypiece with plain pilasters and a dentil cornice is fitted with a replica cast-iron grate. The panelling principally dates from the late 16th century but was reset in the 18th century as part of Wake's remodelling. To the east of the chimney breast is a wide, blind section with a four-centred arched moulded timber head, likely a former oriel window. Immediately adjacent, above the current doorway, a moulded architrave with blank mortices in the lintel indicates a former window. Sash windows have panelled linings.

Only the western end of the range's south wall was retained above first-floor level during the gallery's construction and is partly preserved within the roof void of the small projecting block. The gallery ceiling is a four-centred arch vault formed in plaster. The spine beam and ceiling joists form a primary structural element of the nine-bay roof, constructed with queen-strut trusses. The coving is also primary, formed on brackets affixed to the ceiling joists. Until 2020, the gallery was subdivided; the western section consequently has new panelling matching the eastern half, with the former partition position marked on the wall to the west of the fireplace.

The ground floor, now subdivided and clad internally, retains transverse beams with empty mortices. Little timber structure survives at ground-floor level, and what remains is embedded in later walling. A splayed opening in what was formerly the external south wall survives, along with a probable late-medieval timber doorcase and door retained within the late-16th-century stair enclosure. The stairs have long since been removed. The eastern ground-floor room retains reeded architraves and panelling dating from the early 19th century when these rooms served as lodgings. The principal ground-floor room, termed the drawing room, had French doors added to its south side in the early 1800s.