The Old Centre of Croydon: Victorian Decay and Redevelopment

Abstract

Some Victorian towns, like Middlesbrough, Crewe and Barrow-in-Furness, were new; others developed from older and smaller settlements that had grown up around church and market place. As these long-established places expanded, their well-to-do inhabitants moved out and settled in healthier, more select localities. The properties they vacated were then occupied by poorer people who lived there in conditions of ever-increasing overcrowding.