74) one chapel, a hall, 36 rooms and offices below stairs, with two large cellars; and above stairs 17 lodging houses on the King's side, 12 on the Queen's side, and 9 on the Prince's side; and 78 rooms in the offices round the courtyard, which contained one acre of ground: the house was out of repair and uninhabitable. There were gardens attached to the house. A moat surrounded the house, of width 60 feet, except in the forest, where it was 115 feet. The moat still exists on the north side, and can be traced all round. Of the buildings little remains except the old Banqueting Hall, a truly beautiful ruin; the roof, with its fine woodwork, is happily still standing, but shored up and supported. The windows are mostly blocked up; fragments only remain of the other buildings; but it is said to be possible, in the gardens at the back, to trace out the courts and the foundations of the chapel and offices. The Palace is approached by a bridge of about the same date as the Palace, viz. the fourteenth century. It crosses the moat, and with its picturesque ivy-clad arches and the Banqueting Hall on one side, and the Court House on the other, it is as lovely an approach to the ruin as could well be imagined or created. [Illustration: KING JOHN'S PALACE, KENT (_From a Drawing by J. Hassell, 1804_)] One of the last visits of the King to Eltham was in the year 1575, when Henry held one of the tournaments in which in his early manhood he so much delighted. This is Holinshed's account of it:-- 'After the parlement was ended, the king kept a solemne Christmasse at his manor of Eltham; and on the Twelfe night in the hall was made a goodlie castell, woonderouslie set out, and in it certeine ladies and knights; and when the king and queene were set, in came other knights and assailed the castell, where manie a good stripe was giuen; and at the last the assailants were beaten awaie. And then issued out knights and ladies out of the castell, which ladies were rich and strangelie disguised; for all their apparell was in braids of gold, fret with moouing spangls of siluer and gilt, set on crimson sattin, loose and not fastned: the mens apparell of the same sute made like Iulis of Hungarie; and the ladies heads and bodies were after the fashion of Amsterdam. And when the dansing was doone, the banket was serued in of two hundred dishes, with great plentie to euerie bodie.' [Illustration: Remains of Eltham Palace] There is little more to be said about Eltham, which is a place so beautiful that it ought to have a more interesting history. Kings and Courts delight me not, nor do I take pleasure in reading about tournaments and masques.