Eltham Palace

The story

Eltham Palace, in the Royal Borough of Greenwich in southeast London, is two buildings in one: the surviving great hall of a medieval royal residence and a glamorous Art Deco house attached to it in the 1930s.

The royal story begins in 1305, when Anthony Bek, Bishop of Durham, presented the manor to the future Edward II. From the 14th to the 16th century Eltham served as a royal residence. One tradition places here the incident that inspired Edward III to found the Order of the Garter. Henry IV was especially fond of the palace, and from December 1400 to mid-February 1401 he played host to Manuel II Palaiologos; no other Byzantine emperor ever came to England. A tournament was staged in the emperor's honor, later celebrated in thirteen Old French letters written to Blanche, the king's daughter, each praising one of the jousters; two of the knights, William Bardolf and John Clinton, can be identified from their heraldry. The palace's great hall, with the third-largest hammerbeam roof of its kind in England, belongs to this royal era, and a tiltyard for jousting still survives.

Royal use faded after the Tudors; by the 1630s the royal family no longer used the palace. The palace's second life came in the 1930s, when Stephen and Virginia Courtauld commissioned the architects Seely and Paget to build a modern house beside the medieval hall. The result, completed in the mid-1930s, has been called a masterpiece of modern design, and the couple's household famously included a pet lemur named Mah-Jongg. Later the Army Educational Corps occupied the site, staying until 1992. The property belongs to the Crown Estate; English Heritage took charge of the great hall in 1984 and of the whole site in 1995.

The legend

Compared with its long royal history, Eltham's ghost lore is remarkably slight, and it is worth being clear about how slight.

The palace appears on a list of English Heritage's "most haunted places" published in June 2009, when The Daily Telegraph reported a selection of the charity's properties where staff and visitors had described ghostly experiences. Eltham's entry consisted of a single claim: the ghost of a former member of staff was said to have been seen showing people around the palace at times when the building should have been empty. No witness names, dates or further details were given, and the original report could not be checked beyond the summary that survives in secondary sources.

That 2009 report is the earliest known appearance of the story. Researchers found no older tradition of royal or medieval ghosts at Eltham in reliable sources, and English Heritage's own history pages for the palace and its Halloween collection of spooky tales do not mention any haunting at all. No television investigation or paranormal study of the palace has been identified.

So, despite its centuries of kings, emperors and jousts, Eltham has no headless queen or wandering knight. Any such story you encounter elsewhere should be treated with suspicion: the only documented claim is the polite, if puzzling, image of a former employee still giving tours.

What remains today

The medieval great hall still stands with its great hammerbeam roof, alongside the 1930s Courtauld house with its Art Deco interiors, gardens and remains of the royal palace, including the tiltyard. The buildings are Grade I listed and the site is a scheduled monument.

Visiting

Eltham Palace and its gardens are open to the public under English Heritage; check the English Heritage website for opening days and prices before traveling. Visitors can see both the medieval hall and the Art Deco interiors. No ghost tours are listed by English Heritage.

Sources

1. Historic England list entry (List entry 1014833) — Historic England · Open Government Licence
2. An historical and descriptive account of the royal palace at Eltham .. — Internet Archive · Buckler, John Chessell, 1793-1894, 1828-01-01 · Public domain (pre-1929)
3. A Series of Archaeological Watching Briefs at Eltham Palace — Archaeology Data Service via Europeana · http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/
4. Oak Balustrade and Rockery Bank Steps Replacement Works. Eltham Palace, London Borough of Greenwich, SE9 5QE. An Archaeological Watching Brief Report. — Archaeology Data Service via Europeana · http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/
5. Rose Garden, Eltham Palace, London Borough of Greenwich A Written Scheme of Investigation for an Archaeological Excavataion and Watching Brief — Archaeology Data Service via Europeana · http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/
6. SGN Mains Replacement Works. Eltham Palace, London Borough of Greenwich SE9 5QE. An Archaeological Watching Brief Report. — Archaeology Data Service via Europeana · http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/
7. Trial Pits at Eltham Palace — Archaeology Data Service via Europeana · http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/
8. Wikimedia Commons category : Eltham Palace — Wikimedia Commons
9. Eltham Palace — TopFoto via Europeana · http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
10. Eltham Palace — TopFoto via Europeana · http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
11. "Eltham Palace: History and Stories" — English Heritage — English Heritage
12. Interior view of Eltham Palace, the Great Hall — Royal Museums Greenwich via Europeana · http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
13. Official website
14. Restoration work at Eltham Palace — TopFoto via Europeana · http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
15. Side elevation of Eltham Palace — Royal Museums Greenwich via Europeana · http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
16. "Spooky stories and gruesome tales" (no Eltham entry) — English Heritage — English Heritage
17. The Wards of Woolwich — London’s Screen Archives via Europeana, 1951 · http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
18. View of Eltham Palace — Royal Museums Greenwich via Europeana · http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
19. View of Eltham Palace — Royal Museums Greenwich via Europeana · http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
20. Wikipedia article — Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Text written by AI from the sources above and checked by a separate AI fact-check (how we work). Images: credits and licenses under each picture.