IV. THE ROYAL PALACE OF ELTHAM.

If Eltham Palace were not overshadowed by the close proximity of London it would undoubtedly receive a greater share of public attention, and the lordly buildings that were for long the favourite resort of our kings would, if situated in a more distant county, attract as many visitors as numerous less interesting buildings receive as a matter of course year by year. Eltham, once a fair village of Kent, is now becoming rapidly swallowed up in the ever-widening geographical expression “the suburbs of London,” and in that unsympathetic atmosphere it is almost as completely buried as is Pompeii beneath the dust and lava of a volcano, or Dunwich beneath the waters of the North Sea. Yet the remains of the royal buildings are not only exceedingly beautiful, but are of extraordinary interest as representing a palace which must have been one of the largest and most elaborate of the mediæval period. Its moat enclosed a building averaging 340 ft. by 300 ft. in area, and the total length of the courts of the palace probably approached 1,000 ft., with a width of from four to five hundred. This rivals Hampton Court, which is 720 ft. by 400 ft., and is not insignificant even when compared with the great scheme of Inigo Jones for Whitehall, which was to have measured 1,200 ft. by 900 ft.

A most remarkable plan of the whole of the apartments within the circumference of the moat has just come under my notice, preserved among the many treasures in the Hatfield papers, and with Lord Salisbury’s kind permission I have used it in preparing the plan on pages 54–55. The original drawing is in outline, and is endorsed “Eltham House,” the second word being in Lord Burghley’s handwriting. In the Public Record Office (State Papers Domestic, Elizabeth, Vol. 234, No. 78) is a plan of the outer courtyard of offices, beyond the moat, of which Hasted publishes a reproduction and Mr. Gregory⁠[14] includes a copy, apparently from an engraving, in his book. This plan, which has puzzled many earlier writers, including Pugin (who in spite of the explicit wording seems to have supposed it to be of the main court and was surprised at the absence of the hall), is signed by John Thorpe, and has the date 1590, in pencil, on the back. The plan at Hatfield is unsigned, but is to the same scale (20 ft. to the inch), and may well have been also the work of Thorpe, although it is executed with much greater care than the plan of the offices in the State Papers. Together the two plans give us the whole extent of the palace and the buildings within its precincts. (See pp. 54 and 55.)

The site at Eltham has never been properly investigated, and the field is open for a very considerable amount of work in verifying or correcting these plans and identifying the positions of the buildings shown thereon. In presenting, therefore, the general arrangement as outlined on the existing manuscripts I intend to do no more than introduce the subject and place one or two considerations at the disposal of those who may complete the work. By the courtesy of Mr. R. R. C. Gregory and Mr. F. W. Nunn I am permitted to reproduce some interesting photographs which were specially taken for the former’s book on Eltham, showing a few of the remains as they stand at the present day.

Although the two plans are full of detail, and evidently drawn with great care, they share with practically all ancient plans a certain inaccuracy which is often very puzzling. There can be no doubt at all about the competence of the surveyors of the Elizabethan period to make perfectly accurate drawings, and their draughtsmanship is surprisingly similar to that of the present day, showing moreover a care which is often above the modern average. Yet they fail us repeatedly, wherever enough of the old work remains to test their accuracy, and their errors are apparently so needless that we are quite at a loss to account for them. Not a little controversy has been waged over the collection of Thorpe’s drawings in the Soane Museum on this very point, and while the draughtsman has incurred serious blame, and much scepticism has been aroused as to the genuineness of the plans, the problem has been left unsolved, and one continues to find at least as much evidence to corroborate as to confute their author. Perhaps if the architect of the present day would reflect upon his own experience he would find less to surprise him in the work of his sixteenth-century predecessor. It is not a rare but a frequent occurrence, even in these days of accurate instruments and multiplied facilities for drawing, to meet with plans that are hastily drawn and inaccurately set down. The surveyor has often to make a rapid survey; he occasionally misreads his own notes and figures; a few important dimensions are sometimes omitted, and when the drawing is made at some distance from the site a little guesswork intrudes; and so much is this so that even official surveys—though absolutely trustworthy for their own purposes—are found to have their percentage of mistakes. But if these lapses occur in finished plans, how numerous are the errors in unfinished drafts or sketch-plans which are made for general purposes only! And who is to say, when we come upon an old drawing, often accidentally preserved in a parcel of MSS., that this is merely a first sketch—a rough draft of which the corrected version has long ago perished? These considerations, I submit, should make us less ready to blame the draughtsman, but at the same time will prepare us for a greater vigilance in checking his work and taking his evidence with the greatest caution.

The plan of the palace proper at Eltham, comprising the buildings within the moat, is, as far as one can judge, very fairly accurate. The foundations of the outside line of fortifications still exist, and correspond in the main to those shown. This outer wall is apparently of sixteenth-century date, and is not unlikely to have been partly the work of Queen Elizabeth. It formed on three sides a broad terrace between the moat and Bishop Bec’s original walls. That the palace was first fortified by Bec⁠[15] is made extremely likely by the general resemblance of the plan to his castle at Somerton, where the area enclosed by the moat has a square plan similar to that of Eltham, with one side lengthened in the same manner, making one of the angles less and one more than a right angle.

The three principal towers at the angles and the one in the centre of the south front are probably his work. The last-named tower evidently guarded the south entrance, and it may have been the remains of this that have been spoken of as “castle-like” in earlier descriptions of the ruins. Some later hand probably inserted the fireplaces in these towers.

A reference to the large-scale Ordnance map will show how accurately the fortifications follow the line of the Elizabethan plan. The view of the palace and moat published by Samuel and Nathaniel Buck in 1735, of which there is a copy in the King’s Library (British Museum), shows the north-east part of this wall fairly intact, and the eastern bastion raised like a tower and covered with a shaped lead roof resembling a cupola. It is probable that most of the building shown by Buck upon the outer walls was erected after the palace was despoiled, and the roofed bastion is not unlikely to have been but an eighteenth-century summer-house, the work perhaps of one of the line of Sir John Shaw.

Fig. 20.—BRIDGE OVER MOAT.

Photograph by

F. W. Nunn.

Fig. 21.—COMPLETE PLAN OF PALACE.

Drawn by

Walter H. Godfrey.

Fig. 22.—INTERIOR OF HALL.

Photograph by

H.M. Office of Works.

The western line of the outer wall is overhung by buildings evidently of the Tudor period, and the fine range of bay windows shown on the Elizabethan plan is borne out in all but a few minor particulars by existing foundations. Further than this, a large portion of the main block of buildings that crosses the fortified area from west to east is here to corroborate the survey, and the great hall with its apartments to the east is found upon the precise line indicated on the drawing. The hall itself is correctly shown, except for the position of one buttress and an adjoining piece of brickwork, and the beautiful fifteenth-century bridge adds valuable evidence supporting the plan.

Of the things revealed by this plan, none will prove of greater interest than the beautiful chapel which, to gain its right orientation, was placed so picturesquely across the great courtyard.

In the Parliamentary Survey of Eltham in 1649 the “fair chapel” is mentioned first in the list of royal apartments, before the hall itself, and in this document we come upon a little bit of unexpected news regarding London. Sir Theodore Mayerne, formerly physician to James I.—he was seventy-six years of age at the time of the survey—is found to be ranger of the park at a salary of £6 1s. 8d., paid from the customs of the Port of London. The survey tells us, however, that he no longer resided at Eltham, but at his house at “Chelsey,” thus confirming the tradition that it was he who originally built the only one of Chelsea’s old palaces that remains—the house which, rebuilt by the Earls of Lindsey, still stands, although divided into several dwellings, overlooking the Thames, just west of Battersea Bridge.

This survey goes on to relate that, beside the fair chapel and great hall, there were forty-six rooms and offices on the ground floor, with two large cellars; and on the upper floor, seventeen lodging rooms on the king’s side, twelve on the queen’s side, and nine on the prince’s side,—in all thirty-eight. Further research would no doubt identify the position of these three suites of apartments, which are not, of course, evident on a plan of the ground floor. The survey mentions the outer “green court” with its thirty-five “bayes of building” on three sides, which contained the offices to which we refer below.

It appears from the building accounts of the reign of Henry VI. that the chapel was being completed in his reign, as mention is made of the construction of a screen and of the two staircases to the gallery above. But the “fair chapel” of the Parliamentary Survey, shown on the Hatfield plan, was the work of Henry VIII. The accounts still exist of the taking down of the old chapel, and of its rebuilding by Henry some twelve feet nearer to the hall. The very massive wall standing west of the chapel on the plan probably marks the position of the western end of the former building. Henry VIII. has left detailed directions as to the erection and furnishing of this chapel, which must have been one of the most beautiful buildings of its time.

The accounts also fix the date of the great hall, which has so far been only conjectural. One of the fortnightly returns of expenditure when the roof was being framed together is headed “Coste and expence don upon the bildying of the newe Halle wytn the manor of Elthm in the charge of James Hatefeld from Sonday the xixth day of Septembr the xixth yer of the reigne of our Sovreign lord King Edward the iiijth unto Sonday the iiid of Octobr the yer aforeseid.” The wages of the freemasons, hardhewers, carpenters (including chief warden and underwarden) plumbers, smythes, labourers, and clerke are all given. We also learn that thirty great iron “spykynggs” for the roof were bought, such, no doubt, as were found in the framework of the roof of Crosby Hall, and ten great “clampes of yron for the bynddyng of the princyples.” Moreover there is a note of six loads of “Raygatestone” at four shillings a load, the same stone employed at Crosby Hall, commonly known as Reigate firestone. In all £140 13s. 6d. was spent in the fortnight.

From this it appears that Crosby Hall, built in 1466, was started some ten years or more before the hall of Eltham Palace; and yet the former is of much later character in almost all its details, and particularly in its panelled roof. The royal palace evidently clung to the traditional methods of design, and they were certainly capable of a more magnificent effect. It will be seen that the octagonal hearth, about which there has been much conjecture, is shown clearly in the plan in front of the throne.

The fame of Eltham will ultimately rest upon the exquisite beauty of this great hall with its timbered roof, heavily moulded and adorned with finely shaped pendants, its two rectangular bay or oriel windows with their elaborate vaulting and the splendid range of windows along both sides, which set the scale and still enrich the design in spite of mutilation and decay. All these have been happily recorded with infinite care and loving detail by Pugin, in the seven plates which form almost the best work in his Examples of Gothic Architecture (Vol. I.).

We are reminded by Mr. Arthur Stratton, in his notice of the hall roof at Eltham, in The Domestic Architecture of England during the Tudor Period , of an interesting point regarding the oak pendants. Pugin, in the description which accompanied his drawings, quotes Mr. J. C. Buckler’s book on Eltham to the effect that the long shafts of the pendants, above the moulded drops, were originally surrounded by delicate carved tracery, one example of which he measured and recorded before it fell from the roof. The present bareness of the pendants has often been noticed, and we are glad to see that Mr. Stratton has included a copy of Buckler’s sketch in his work, Pugin having merely shown it in dotted lines around his own detail of the roof. There is little doubt that the mediæval carpenter regarded the timber roof as the highest subject on which to exercise his skill, and both in vigour of design and delicacy in carving and modelling his efforts at Eltham met with wonderful success.

There has been much discussion as to the existence of one or more courts on the south side of the hall, and the plan seems to show that the space was gradually utilised for extensions of the kitchens and offices, since considerable capacity was required from the royal custom of keeping Christmas at Eltham. The outbuildings which are nearest the hall were in all probability but single-story erections, and may have been late in date.

The survey of the green or outer court gives greater difficulty. All evidence of the courtyard has disappeared; its gatehouse has gone, and what must have been a superbly picturesque approach to the palace, with its timbered buildings on either side as it widened towards the moat, is now a curtailed strip of greensward, occupied by lofty trees, and traversed by a road which yet retains some reminiscence of its ancient purpose in its name—“The Courtyard.” The only definite clue to the site is a range of private houses along its western side, which chiefly date from the eighteenth century, but of which the southern end is without doubt much older, and is happily identical in plan with the building described by John Thorpe as “My Lord Chancellor his Lodgings.” The house is a most charming weatherboarded building with the upper floor overhung, and has a fine stack of chimneys. Its southern end projects into the courtyard and has a large timber gable which overshadows a square bay-window below. The building is at present divided into two houses, but Thorpe’s plan shows how complete an example it was of the moderate-sized dwelling of the period. Its hall was approached by the usual porch and screen, and had the accustomed oriel window and fireplace. At the upper end was a private room or parlour, and behind the screen was a larger room—the great chamber, whose square bay-window overlooked the courtyard. From the screen again access was obtained to the kitchen (which has disappeared, but is clearly shown on the plan) and to the wooden newel staircase that still exists, furnishing an excellent example of its type.

Fig. 23.—THE CHANCELLOR’S HOUSE.

Photograph by

F. W. Nunn.

The houses to the north of the Chancellor’s Lodging continue the frontage line, and appear to occupy the site of the rooms marked “Buttery” and “Spicery” on Thorpe’s plan. If this is so, we have the west side of our courtyard definitely marked out for us. The initial difficulty, however, is that Thorpe has marked his western range at a different angle to the moat, and the direction of his bridge does not correspond with its relative position to the timber buildings. But too much importance must not be attached to this, as the moat has been apparently sketched in without the intention of placing it in its proper position. A more serious matter is, that if the old plan be placed so that the west side coincides with the existing buildings, then the southern end of the eastern range trespasses on the area of the moat as shown in the Hatfield plan of the main part of the palace. Here, again, the draughtsman may simply have drawn the two sides of the moat parallel to one another without measurement, and it is possible that the present boundary of the ditch, at the western end of its northern bank, represents the correct line, since if produced it coincides with the southern wall of the “Privy Bakehouse,” and the otherwise curious position of the “Scalding House” beyond becomes explained by the return of the eastern side of the moat. Whether this interpretation is correct or not, I have adopted it as the method involving the least modification of Thorpe’s drawings, as I think it is important that they should be put on record in this way before any attempt is made to adjust any further inconsistencies.

Joined together thus, the two plans cannot fail to give us a very fair idea of the palace, and it would be easy to construct a vivid word-picture of the beauty and charm that must have belonged to the whole scene which these old manuscripts can conjure up for us. Even a cursory glance shows its infinite suggestiveness. The way up to the gatehouse is flanked with converging walls and outbuildings of picturesque form and disposition. The gateway itself, massively built in contrast with the timber houses on either side, admits us to the long green court, the irregular boundaries of which lead onwards to the palace in a fair perspective. On each side are the low outbuildings of half-timber work and plaster, and beyond rise the high walls of the fortifications, Bishop Bec’s towers still amongst them, and the gatehouse to the great court standing out in the centre. As the visitor proceeds, he will see the waters of the wide moat, the banks of which still show the unusual width of a hundred feet. Between him and the gatehouse is the stone bridge, with its four beautiful pointed arches, the last of which reaches the wall of the terrace, built probably over the ancient place of the drawbridge (which Henry VIII. mentions) before the porter’s gate.⁠[16]

Within the great court the scene is one of royal splendour. The battlemented gable of the chapel is close at the visitor’s right hand, and immediately opposite is Edward IV.’s great hall, which even now is glorious in its ruinous condition.⁠[17] Its coupled windows (like the southern lights only of Crosby Hall) divided by buttresses, its square oriel and doorway, its oak lantern, and Henry VIII.’s finial and vane on the summit of the west gable, combine in this great central feature of the mediæval palace a dignity and distinction worthy of its purpose. And all around the court fine work in timber gives a pleasing contrast and relief to the solidity of the masonry. For in a line with the hall to the east were oak gables and bargeboards well moulded and carved—three of which are yet to be seen—and King Henry VIII. himself gave orders for the gallery from the hall to the chapel to have a “clerestory” and to be embattled in timber, and the cloister (pentise) on the opposite side to be likewise wrought and embattled in oak.

Henry VIII. spent much money at Eltham, and in his imperious way effected great changes in the ancient palace, though nearly all his work has since perished. If the visitor of the time of Thorpe’s survey had passed through the door of the great hall and beneath the wonderful roof of Edward IV., he would have found himself in the kitchen court, where on the right was to be seen the “New Lodging” which Henry had built for himself. In the south-west angle of the court a little door gave access to the privy bridge across the moat and turning to the right beyond this he could see the elaborate front of this building, which was prepared with infinite care, as the king’s instructions show. The succession of bay or oriel windows, the centre one of which was of the elaborate form affected in his reign, must have pleased the eye of a king who stopped at nothing in his ambition for truly royal surroundings.

To return to Thorpe’s plan of the green court, there is one point which requires explanation, and which presents the most serious obstacle in the way of our accepting the precise disposition which he gives to the buildings. Just outside the first gatehouse and to the north of the bakehouse is a wall which bounds the outer courtyard to the east. A portion of Tudor walling in this direction still exists, and in it is a fine gateway in about the same relative position as the opening shown on the plan. This wall and gateway, however, are much farther west than those indicated on Thorpe’s plan, and should thus appear where he shows an open space. Either he has omitted to show them, which seems improbable, or his wall and gate are too far to the east. This point affects the important matter of the position of the gatehouse itself, and indeed if decided against the drawing would probably modify the lines of the green court. The identity, indeed, of this so-called “Tilt-yard” gate with that shown by Thorpe may prove to be the key to the proper placing of his plan, but the evidence at present is fragmentary, and, as I have already said, the subject invites much careful investigation. The combined plans have been purposely reproduced here to the scale of the Ordnance (88 ft. to the inch) to facilitate comparison, and I have no doubt that it will not be long before we have enough further information to give a corrected plan of the whole building.

—W. H. G.

THE ORIGIN OF THE DOMESTIC HALL

Fig. 24.—THE GUILDHALL, YORK.