Eltham Palace

This was the second day of our weekend break in London. Having stayed the night with our friend J in Walthamstow, we spent the morning visiting Eltham Palace.

I am so pleased to have finally seen it, having wanted to go ever since I saw it featured in an episode of the BBC series "One Foot in the Past" in the late 1990s. I knew I would love the place but it actually surpassed my expectations.

The Great Hall is part of the original royal palace, built in the 1470s for Edward IV. It remains one of the largest and finest medieval halls in England. In early Tudor times it was the most important of the royal palaces and Henry VIII spent much of his childhood here. He later came to favour Hampton Court and Eltham went into gradual decline.

In the 1930s Stephen and Virginia Courtauld leased the site and commissioned the architects Seely and Paget to design and build an ultra-modern house incorporating the Great Hall, with an Art Deco interior design. The Courtaulds left Eltham in 1944 and the house became an Army School of Education until 1992. English Heritage then took over management of the site and began a project to restore the house and garden. to its 1930s appearance.

If you are a fan of Art Deco and haven't yet seen Eltham, it really is a must visit place. Sadly, photography indoors is forbidden. I would have loved to have posted a blip of the fabulous marquetry panelling in the famous Entrance Hall or Virginia Courtauld's bath with the statue of Psyche in a gold mosiac niche.

Instead I have had to go for an exterior shot. This view shows the south side of the building with the 1930s house in the foreground and the medieval Great Hall beyond.