The first I had ever heard of Eltham Palace was yesterday evening as I was checking some notes in a guide book and still wondering why there was no mention of Reading. I chanced on the name as a lesser known former royal palace which had retained the old walls, the moat and the traditional medieval grand hall but had an ostentatious modern wing attached in the last century. It was described in the guide book as London's hidden secret attraction, tucked away in London's more exclusive south eastern suburb. I resolved there and then that evening to visit it today. To enforce my resolve I even paid for an entrance ticket and a guide book online.
I reached Mottingham station, a remote outpost on the Gravesend line, accessible from Waterloo East and London Bridge. A quick check on the map showed that I was less than a mile away from the palace, but I still had a long steep trudge uphill to reach it. I was immediately enchanted as the palace is approached across an authentic XVth century bridge, built apparently for Edward IV, and led over a picturesque moat surrounded by authentic early medieval walls from the XIVth century. Across the bridge, and behind a proud lime tree, lay sprawled a hybrid palace consisting of a 1930's millionaire's mansion on the left and a XIVthe century great hall on the right.
Originally the royal palace had been a manor house and hunting lodge presented by the Bishop of Durham to the luckless Edward II, who sought in turn to appease his powerful French wife Isabella by granting it to her. It did not help and she still overthrew him and eventually murdered him. She fortified the walls of the palace and brought up her son, Edward III, here. Fanciful tales linked Eltham as the site where Edward first instituted the Order of the Garter, although the garter was more of a male attire at the time, rather than a female one, so I'm not sold on the story of the royal mistress's fallen garter. His son Richard II was largely responsible for the garden (before he was murdered). It was at Eltham that Henry IV entertained the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II, and Henry V hosted the German Emperor Sigismund. However the great hall and the bridge were erected later by Edward IV. The royals, especially Henry VIII, enjoyed and enriched this palace up until the English Civil War, when the place was looted and abandoned, At one stage the crumbling palace became a farmhouse and the great hall acted as a barn.
In the 1920s the Courtauld family were allowed to buy the property and build a new mansion alongside the old hall. It is that strange combination of the old and the new that amazed me when I crossed the bridge. When I entered the modern building I was struck by the most exquisite Art Deco furnishing that I had ever seen. It covered the spectacular circular entrance hall with its brown veneer panelled walls and white furniture laid out on a large peach coloured circular rug, which is complemented in turn by a circular domed roof above it, punctuated by glass apertures letting in the light to offset the darker veneer walls. A flawless time capsule. The adjoining dining room had beautiful black lacquered doors and panels encrusted with various animals. Upstairs there were more opulent masterpieces of art deco in the two master bedrooms and the adjoing guest bedrooms. Each had en suite bathrooms, one of which had a marble bath with gold taps, overlooked by a gold mosaic vault and an exquisite white female statue. Another oddity was a cage in the corridor which housed the families' pet lemur, which had the run of the house and sometimes bit the guests it didn't like. From these rooms there was a corridor which led onto the gallery that overlooked the genuine medieval grand hall. And yes, it was grand. It must have been as long as a football pitch and had the height of a cathedral nave. Its interior had plenty of light because of the numerous windows, some of which included stained glass. The hall was topped with an oak hammer beam roof complete with drooping pendants and comparable in size and detail to the roof I saw at Westminster Hall. The overall impact of this hybrid palace of contrasting styles and ages was stunning. I was so pleased with my sudden, almost whimsical, decision to travel here.
The gardens were just as eclectic, a mixture of Richard II, Henry VIII and the Courtauld family. There are extensive meadows, enclosed rose gardens, a picnic area, a historic wooden bridge, secret gates and passages through the medieval and Tudor brick work and a picturesque moat surrounded on the one side by Isabella's wall and on the other with a steep grassy bank. The moat has no crocodiles, but mysterious black fish, the size of koy, can be seen frolicking in the water. I sense they would be more than a match for any passing heron. I could see myself coming back here sometime with Albina, or with friends.
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