PLACE NAME
Although shown as a path running from Broad Green to Selhurst and White Horse Road to Cherry Orchard Road across Croydon Common on a 1768 map this is not a reference to a crossroads, as the name might imply. Nor does it refer to a church but to a man, James Cross, landlord of the nearby Windmill Inn from 1855 to 1865. East Croydon Community Organisation writes: “There were gates at the ends of these paths to stop the animals grazing on the common from straying onto the highway. The path from the Broad Green Gate to Selhurst Gate branched off along what is now St James Road/Lower Addiscombe Road. Cross Road developed from a track branching off this, leading to Coney Lane Gate at its junction with Cherry Orchard Road.” James Cross was succeeded as the landlord of the Windmill by Thomas Cross who ran it until around 1867. From at least 1859, its small side roads are also listed in street directories. Some of these survive today as unadopted roads, Edwin Place, Jackson’s Place, John’s Terrace.
