1st June 2011
Lambeth its Palace & its People by Joan Cottle
Joan Cottle (left), senior guide at the Palace our speaker for this day guided our thoughts of the palace, room by room, and supplied a mass of historical detail about various archbishops, monarchs, from the 12th century onwards, but prior to that Joan informed us of the requirement of the Pope Gregory in Rome in 597 called for Monk Augustine and sent him to England to convert the English, eventually after two attempts they landed at Ebbfleet in Kent and established a settlement in Canterbury and eventually the post Arch Bishop of Canterbury was formed, but as it was a long journey to London in 1199 monks at Rochester gave land they owned in Lambeth to the Archbishop of Canterbury in exchange for more land in Rochester.
Lambeth its Palace
Joan continued the entrance to the Palace precinct consists of two immense square towers of great height, with a spacious gateway between them, with rooms over the gateway. This entrance was built by Cardinal Morton, and finished as we now see it about the year 1490. The towers are built of fine red brick with stone dressings, and with black brick ornamentation of crosses of various designs and embattled at the top. The bricks have worn better than the stones. The brick towers of St. James's Palace as seen from St. James's Street are very striking, but they are not so handsome and of such beautiful proportions as the gateway towers of Lambeth Palace.
The courtyard inside the entrance gate is well kept, and forms a nice lawn and a relief to the eye amid the incongruity of the surrounding buildings, for although each building has its own particular charm and interest, together they are very incongruous. Frequently seen on this grass plot is a tortoise. There is a record that a tortoise was put into the garden at Lambeth by Archbishop Laud in the year 1633, where it for a period of 120 years, when it was unfortunately killed by the negligence of a gardener!
This virtual tour of the palace covered most of the Palace including the crypt with the small altar and paintings , it was in the crypt that Henry VIII met Archbishop Cranmer to discuss how he could annul his marriage to Anne Boleyn. From the crypt out to the garden where there is a unusual white fig tree planted by Archbishop Pole in 1540, at one stage this was due for removal but its historical value saved it from the chainsaw! The garden still occupies nine acres of extremely valuable land in a prime area of London, the Palace once had attached to it some thirty acres of ground as garden and field. But the late archbishop gave up keeping cows, and placed the fields under the management of the London County Council, and they now form a very pleasant playground for the children of the neighbourhood.
Our talk included the state drawing room, the Hansard room where the Archbishop who is a member of the House of Lords keeps his copies of the proceedings (The Hansard), and the tower, upstairs there was a very grim cell where the Lollards were imprisoned. There is a post room with a private postal collection, and a doorway built by Archbishop Langton in 1220 leading into the chapel. There are frescoes on the ceiling with a theme of "Out of darkness into light".
Lambeth its Palace from the River Thames from an old postcard
The interior of the Hall is very striking. It is 93 feet long, 50 feet high and 38 feet wide. The open roof is very handsome, being composed entirely of oak, with projecting hammer beams supported by upper and lower braces.
Armorial bearings always make an effective picture, and consequently those in the Library attract much attention. When one reflects that they were done, wholly by the hand with a quill pen and brush, that the colouring and gilding and the ink have stood for centuries, and that the material on which the work was done is still in a perfect state of preservation, one wonders in what respect ability has improved, or progress has been made. The Archbishop uses the Hall for the conferring of degrees, and His Grace's Chancellor uses it for the holding of his Courts for the granting of Faculties.
The State Drawing Room or Hall
At the further end of the long gallery a door leads into what is known as the post room, so called from a large post or pillar in the centre of it, which supports the roof. It forms one of the storeys of the Lollard’s Tower. It is generally supposed to be the post to which heretics sentenced to be whipped were tied to receive their punishment, although Joan indicate it may have supported the ceiling in bygone days but has been removed and the ceiling survived!
Joan continued on her virtual tour of the Palace, but without any visuals it was sometimes difficult to follow, never the less we continued to the Chapel from the private apartments is through the Vestry at the north-east end. There is the pew or seat in which 300 in pre-Reformation times ladies who were allowed to attend any religious ceremony’s were allowed to sit. Over the western doorway of the antechapel is also a curious "peep hole" from which it is supposed that either lepers or heretics confined in the adjoining Lollard’s Tower were able to join in the service.
The Chapel is also interesting as being the burial-place of Archbishop Parker, the Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury who had been Chaplain to Anne Boleyn, mother of Queen Elizabeth, the Episcopal Church in America originated in Lambeth Palace and why American Bishops regard the Chapel so lovingly when they visit London. Underneath the Chapel is, architecturally, a beautiful crypt.
Joan covered much more in her presentation covering Arch Bishops, Kings and, Crowell's Protestants plus rebels who commandeer the Palace as a soldier post, in fact 1500 years of history far too much for this limited web report , hence after numerous questions Ken Robinson gave a vote of thanks on behalf of the membership, so THANK you Joan
