As was Eltham, so was Kennington. Both places were built for the same
purpose about the same time. Both were castles erected on a plain
without the aid of hillock, mound or running stream--unless the moat at
Kennington was fed by one of the many streams of South London. The plan
of 1636 shows approximately the line of the wall; the stream or the
ditch marks the course of the moat; the 'Long Barn' on the east side of
the palace belonged to the 'service'--it was kitchens, stables, armoury,
brewery, or granary. The house itself had its principal entrance on the
north. This is certain, because all the supplies were brought by what
is now Kennington Road either from Westminster Ferry or from Southwark.
A gate on this side simplified the transference which took place when
the court moved from one place to another; when everything--bedding,
blankets, utensils of all kinds, plate, _batterie de cuisine_, the
workmen with their tools, the wardrobe of king and queen--was packed up
and carried from Westminster over the ferry to Kennington, or from
Kennington to Woolwich. Provisions and goods sent up from the City were
also landed at Stangate, Lambeth, so as to get as short a land journey
as possible. For these reasons I place the principal gate at the north.
I have seen it stated--I know not with what truth--that the people of
the streets now on the site have found substructures beneath their
houses. If so, one would expect, what one cannot find, some tradition to
account for the existence of these stone vaults.
Such was the vanished Palace of Kennington: a fortress of the Lambeth
Marsh, a place for keeping Christmas, a royal residence; now completely
vanished.
Two other royal houses there were in South London, neither of which can
be compared with Kennington. Greenwich, for instance, which appears in
history from the time of King Alfred. Edward I., Henry IV., Henry V.,
Edward IV., Henry VII., Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Elizabeth--all had
more or less to do with Greenwich. When Henry VIII. completed his
buildings here he deserted Eltham; he left, that is, the mediæval
fortress for the modern house. His Greenwich was not fortified. The
accompanying view of it shows that it possessed none of the
characteristics of the ancient residence, half castle, half manor house.
Greenwich, however, before Henry rebuilt it, was a fortified castle. Had
we a plan of Greenwich of the fourteenth century it would most certainly
resemble those of Eltham and of Kennington, with certain small
differences, just as one Benedictine monastery resembles in its general
disposition another Benedictine monastery, and one Norman castle in
general terms, and allowing for the site, resembles another.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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