The secrets of London's forgotten palace
United Kingdom London Travel England
Oliver Smith
Hand a map of the capital to your typical Londoner, and I&rsquo;d wager they&rsquo;d be unable to locate Eltham, sandwiched between leafy Greenwich and nondescript Sidcup, with any confidence.
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The Telegraph
Hand a map of the capital to your typical Londoner, and I’d wager they’d be unable to locate Eltham, sandwiched between leafy Greenwich and nondescript Sidcup, with any confidence.

Turn the clock back 500 years, however, and this forgotten corner of the city was renowned as a magnet for the most powerful men in the country – not to mention the home of Henry Tudor, the rambunctious boy that would become England’s most famous king.

From the early 14th century until the start of the 17th, Eltham could boast one of the largest and most frequented royal residences in the country, a vast moated palace of more than 2,000 rooms that rivalled Hampton Court for size and opulence.

Edward III passed much of his youth there, Henry IV spent 10 of his 13 Christmases as king at Eltham, hosting the Byzantine emperor for a yuletide supper in 1400 (on the road from Dover to London, it was a fine place to entertain dignitaries), and it was Edward IV’s favourite residence (records recount how he threw a lavish festive feast for 2,000 people in 1482).

But the arrival of young Henry Tudor, whose father moved him there while he was off fighting wars in France, marked the beginning of the end for medieval Eltham Palace. As king, Henry VIII preferred Greenwich for its riverside accessibility, before his expansion of Hampton Court shifted the focus of the royal court to the west. The gradual decline was hastened when Eltham Palace was sold by Parliament to Colonel Nathaniel Rich in 1651. Cromwell’s soldier tore it to pieces and when the diarist John Evelyn visited in 1656 he found no more than “miserable ruins”. Paintings from the 18th century show sheep grazing beside its decaying walls and the crumbling Great Hall, built by Edward IV, being used as a barn for cattle.

And that might have been that. All traces of the luxurious abode where Henry VIII learnt to hunt and joust might have been lost to time, subsumed by the urban sprawl and encased in concrete.

Thankfully, Eltham Palace was handed a second life in 1933 by two of the most eccentric millionaires in Britain. Stephen and Virginia Courtauld saved the relics of the medieval building by incorporating them into their new residence: an ultra-modern Art Deco party house as wondrous as that which came before it (albeit in a very different way).

It is the Courtauld’s remarkable creation that greets visitors today, providing one very good reason to dust off your A-Z and discover SE9. I joined English Heritage historian Dr Andrew Hann last month to find out what makes Eltham Palace so special – and to uncover a few of its secrets.

It was owned by one of Britain’s most curious couples

Stephen and Virginia Courtauld had been married for a decade when they chanced upon the ruins of Eltham Palace while searching for a semi-rural property within easy reach of central London. They would remain together for a further 44 years, evidence perhaps that opposites really do attract.

Virginia, born in Romania, was a flamboyant socialite and divorcee who raced cars, gambled, claimed to be a descendant of Vlad the Impaler, and had a tattoo of a snake on her right leg (according to rumours, it stretched from her ankle to her upper thigh and only her husband knew where it finished). Stephen, on the other hand, who was awarded the Military Cross during the First World War, was a serious sort who counted collecting orchids and rare minerals among his hobbies.

“Stephen sat on my right and didn’t utter a word for a long time,” Virginia would later recall of their first encounter. “At last, I asked him, ‘Don’t you ever speak?’ He looked up quickly and gave his wonderful smile. I suppose you could say that was the start of our courtship. It was for me, anyway.” Stephen described Virginia as the sun that melted his cold exterior.

Evidence of their contrasting personalities can be seen at Eltham. Her bedroom and boudoir, where she entertained a conveyor belt of guests, are dazzling and sumptuous – with her glittering bathroom, complete with gold mosaic tiles and gold plated taps, a highlight. His quarters are staid and traditional, filled with oak panels and sketches of samples from Kew Gardens.

“Ginny was a complete party animal,” explained Dr Hann. “She was a vivacious and extremely fiery character, known to throw things at servants, shout and shriek, and spend more money than she could afford on expensive clothes. She would do most of the hosting, while Stephen would often retreat to his bedroom to read a book.”

The Courtaulds didn’t have any children but took in two nephews, Peter and Paul Peirano, because Virginia didn’t think they were being looked after properly. “Paul was dashing and Ginny’s favourite; Peter was more bookish – a bit like Stephen,” said Dr Hann. “At Peter’s 21st birthday party, held in the Great Hall, Ginny organised a massive banquet with a jazz band playing in the minstrels’ gallery, and got all the waiters dressed up in lederhosen. Peter, of course, wasn’t into it at all. Later there was a midnight fireworks display which prompted letters to The Times from nearby residents complaining that their dogs have been kept awake.

“Sadly, Paul died during the war – in 1942 off the coast of Japan – and Ginny was heartbroken.”

It is a wonder of modern technology

Visiting Britain’s stately homes can be a staid and repetitive experience – all antique furniture and portraits of glum gentry. Not so Eltham. With its Art Deco style, it is reminiscent of an ocean liner, and it conceals all manner of surprising modern touches practically unheard of in the Thirties, from heated towel rails and electric fires to built-in furniture. An internal telephone exchange meant Virginia could badger the staff from 18 different locations. A centralised gramophone system and synchronised clocks mean the music and the time can be adjusted in every room simultaneously.

Best of all is the house’s in-built vacuuming system. Look out for nozzles on the walls in several of the rooms. “You’d lift the flap, plug your hose in and the dust would be sent through pipes in the walls to a giant bag and motor in the basement,” explained Dr Hann. “The first vacuum cleaners were horse-drawn motorised contraptions which were taken from door to door. Hoses from the road were hauled into the house and then back out again. These in-built systems were the height of fashion for a very short period, but tended to be found only in hotels and theatres.

“But they weren’t perfect – an account from one of the maids revealed that it sometimes went into reverse function and blew soot and dust into all the rooms.”

The house was created by architects John Seely and Paul Paget, professional partners – and lovers – who lived and worked together at 41 Cloth Fair in Smithfield, where they installed two separate bathtubs so they could enjoy a soak at the same time and discuss architecture. The building can now be rented for overnight stays through the Landmark Trust.

It was home to a very pampered lemur

Stephen and Virginia had at least one thing in common: a shared love for exotic pets. Not content with their three enormous dogs – a Great Dane called Caesar, who was known to steal sausages from the local butcher, an Afghan Hound named Kais, and a giant poodle called Solfo – they kept a goat, chickens, swans, mandarin ducks, a bushbaby and a parrot called Congo.

Most treasured, however, was the ring-tailed lemur acquired from Harrods (the department store sold all manner of animals right up until the 1976 Endangered Species Act). Mah-Jongg had his own heated sleeping quarters (still preserved), enlivened by painted jungle scenes to remind him of the bamboo forests of Madagascar. A ladder in the corner of his room provided access to the rest of Eltham Palace. “He had free run of the entire house and was known to sit on the shoulders of guests during dinner and sneak under the table to bite anyone he didn’t like,” said Dr Hann.

When he died in 1938 the Courtaulds buried him in the garden and erected a ringed obelisk as a memorial. The obelisk (and Mah-Jongg’s remains) were removed when Stephen and Virginia moved to Zimbabwe after the war, but visitors can see other reminders of this pampered creature, including a boss on the ceiling of the Great Hall.

It was the scene of much army high jinx

Eltham was largely a summer residence. Stephen and Virginia, quite sensibly, preferred to spend winters exploring far-flung corners of the planet on their luxurious Art Deco yacht. But they remained at Eltham for most of the Second World War, when their basement served as an air raid shelter – albeit a well appointed one with a gramophone and billiard room. Damage from bombs can still be seen today if you closely inspect the floor of the Great Hall’s minstrels’ gallery.

“Virginia was constantly inviting people to keep them company, including all the family, but she drove everyone mad,” said Dr Hann. “Ginny also got involved with the Women’s Voluntary Services, collecting pots and pans to turn into Spitfires. She was a WVS Commandant, of course, not just an also-ran – she had to be ordering everyone around. But she certainly did a good job and received high praise.”

In 1944, however, worn out by the bombing, they left Eltham and moved – first to Scotland and then to La Rochelle, a Breton style house in Zimbabwe, where they stayed until the Seventies. At the suggestion of their close friend, the Conservative politician Rab Butler, the lease was passed to the Army Educational Corps, where it remained until 1992. The soldiers certainly enjoyed their luxurious digs, turning the basement into a bar and disco and eating grand banquets in the Great Hall. “They actually had five different bars on the property,” said Dr Hann. “After too many drinks they would use tea trays to slide down the spiral staircase from the Great Hall into the billiard room. And some of them talked about having baths in Ginny’s golden tub.”

Another of the army’s drinking holes was Virginia’s office, which she used for planning parties and travels. It’s now called the map room, after the discovery in 2015 of maps and murals pasted on every wall depicting the Courtauld’s adventures. “They were hidden behind paint and plaster with the exception of a tiny little piece of eastern Prussia,” said Dr Hann. “We thought perhaps there was one map, but as we stripped everything away we found dozens more.”

It’s a window to another world

A trip to Eltham Palace will have you wishing you could go back to the Thirties to attend one of Virginia’s parties – a truly fascinating cast of characters would have been there. Among the regulars were filmmakers and actors (Stephen was a major investor in Ealing Studios), designers and architects, and politicians. There were also plenty of explorers. Stephen was a keen mountain climber and supported several Arctic sojourns. One of his nephews, Augustine Courtauld, was awarded the Polar Medal after his British Arctic Air Route Expedition, which involved a testing five-month winter stay in Greenland (a replica of his goggles and woolly hat can be seen in Stephen’s study). Freddie Spencer Chapman, famous for his exploits behind enemy lines in Malaya, was another frequent guest (a photo shows him in a kayak doing Eskimo rolls in the Eltham Palace swimming pool).

The household’s eccentricities certainly meant a trip to Eltham was always unpredictable. On one occasion, Mah-Jongg bit the hand of Percy Lemon, the wireless operator for Augustine Courtauld’s Arctic expedition, puncturing an artery. Iodine was provided, to which Lemon proved allergic. He didn’t recover for three months, delaying the departure to Greenland. “Visitors would often be handed a pair of shears and asked to help out with the gardening,” added Dr Hann. “Others would be made to watch the Courtauld’s home movies – they were early innovators with ciné film. Various letters, including one from Leo Amery, the Tory MP, show they bored their guests rigid with their screenings.

“Ginny also used to deliberately invite people round who she didn’t think would get along and watch them fight at the dinner table.”

There are other secrets and mysteries

Eltham Palace is packed with stories and Dr Hann told of other intriguing tales:

The family had links to the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and it is believed that the property was used as a spy safe house during the war.

Stephen had a collection of rare minerals and gems which were given to the Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe – but then disappeared (“We think Mugabe’s chums might have had something to do with that”).

The stone columns in the garden were salvaged from John Soane’s Bank of England building, demolished in the Thirties.

A walkway in the garden is a remnant of the 16th-century drains – the height of Tudor technology.

It’s a fascinating place – frozen in time – but there’s also a certain tragedy about Eltham Palace. Dr Hann explained: “Would the Great Hall be standing today if it wasn’t for the Courtaulds? They not only saved it but they gave it a purpose – and created an incredible party house. Yet they were only here for such a small amount of time [11 years] and never really got to enjoy the palace they created.”

At least those who make the journey to overlooked Eltham still can.