What Hubert built here is uncertain, but it is certain that he did build
some kind of residence. Stephen Langton added other buildings; Boniface,
A.D. 1260, found the buildings in great need of repair or insufficient.
He was the first considerable builder of Lambeth. One may make a fair
guess at the work of Boniface. We may consider it by the light afforded
by the monastic Houses--this was not a monastery, but there was
certainly something of the monastic spirit about the House. We may also
take it for granted that certain essential parts of the building, though
they might be rebuilt with greater splendour, would not change their
position. For instance, when in after years we find a chapel, a
cloister, a water-tower, or entrance from the river, and a gate-tower,
or entrance from the land--then these things existed from the first.
Boniface, therefore, found a chapel in the north-west corner of the
Palace, where it still stands; on the west side of the chapel he found a
water-tower with a gate opening upon a creek of the river by which
everything was received into the House, the door of communication with
the outer world, while the Archbishop's barges and boats lay moored up
the creek. South of the chapel Boniface either built or rebuilt the
cloisters; south of the cloisters he built or rebuilt his Hall. A Hall
was absolutely necessary for a great house, and for an Archbishop's
Palace it must be a splendid Hall. What is now called the Guard Room was
probably at first part of the Archbishop's private apartments.
[Illustration: Doorway in the Lollard's Tower]
A list of the rooms then in the Palace was made in 1321. At that time
there was the Archbishop's private Chapel, his Chamber, his Hall, the
Chancellor's Chambers, the Great Chapel, the Great Gate, and certain
minor apartments--a modest list, but the dormitories and principal
bedchambers are not enumerated, nor is any mention made of the Library,
the offices, the cells, or the Main Gate, all of which must have been
there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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