Croydon’s Tudor and Stuart inns

Trevor James offers a case study in how to define and identify inns as part of the historic urban environment.

Croydon’s Tudor and Stuart inns Croydon’s Tudor and Stuart inns had a remarkable and formative effect on its urban landscape, an effect which still endures into modern times. Topographers and geographers would argue that the shape of its central area – what they would label its ‘geomorphology’ – was determined by the location and function of its inns in terms of its street pattern and indeed its street names. Inns played a very central and important role in the social and economic life within a community. In effect they functioned as ‘community centres’...