Happy country! where every man can consult his own taste, and build
according to his own fancy, amalgamating in one structure all the known
orders and varieties, Persian, Egyptian, Athenian, and European.
Croydon in 1573 contained the _archiepiscopal palace_ of the celebrated
Archbishop Parker, who, as well as his successor Whitgift, here had
frequently the honour to entertain Queen Elizabeth and her court: the
manor since the reign of William the Conqueror has belonged to the
Archbishops of Canterbury. The church is a venerable structure, and the
stately tower, embowered with woods and flanked by the Surrey hills,
a most picturesque and commanding object; the interior contains some
monuments of antiquity well worthy the attention of the curious. The
town itself has little worthy of note except the hospital, ~282~~founded
by Archbishop Whitgift for a warder and twenty poor men and women,
decayed housekeepers of Croyden and Lambeth: a very comfortable and
well-endowed retirement.
"This was formerly the King's road," said coachee, "but the radicals
having thought proper to insult his majesty on his passing through to
Brighton during the affair of the late Queen, he has ever since gone by
the way of Sutton: a circumstance that has at least operated to produce
one christian virtue among the inhabitants, namely, that of humility;
before this there was no _getting change_ for a civil sentence from
them.
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