Henry VIII and Art Deco

A bishop gave Eltham Palace to Edward II, then Edward IV added a great hall to it, and Henry VIII and his sisters grew up there. As often is the case, glory disappears quickly, and later for 200 years the palace was used as a farm.

In the 1930s Stephen (inheritor of a textile fortune) and Virginia Courtauld bought the place and built an Art Deco inspired house around the great hall. The entrance hall (above left) got its inspiration from the Stockholm City Hall, and the dining hall (above right) was very much in line with the Parisian Art Deco style.

The great hall of 1470 (above) is a rare survival from the medieval royal palace – the earlier hall was destroyed by a lightning. The current hall saw a party of 2000 at Christmas 1482, hosted by Edward IV. In 1400, still in the earlier hall, Henry IV received Manuel Palaeologus, the Byzantine Emperor. Charles I was the last king to visit the palace.

In the 1930s the inhabitants of the palace included a pet lemur called Mah-Jongg that must have delighted the servants by coming and going from its lair via the kitchen. The numerous guest bedrooms housed the great and good of the day, and the interior of the palace was also covered in ’Country Life’, including the bedroom (above left), her boudoir (above centre), and his study (above right). The Courtaulds left in 1944, and the Army used the Palace after that until the 1990s, when the National Trust took over.