Eltham Palace

As this English heritage property has had a bit of renovation work done on it, I thought I would venture out and have a look.

Eltham was once a real fortified mediaeval palace. King Henry VIII lived there as a boy. So it has a real moat for example..

 And from its moderately lofty perch in South London you can catch glimpses of the City

But the Palace was in a pretty ruinous state by the tarn of the last century with just the great hall surviving (effectively as a barn), but then it was bought by the Coutaulds who built a luxurious modern art deco house next to it in the 1930s. Here you can see the join.

 The old..

 .. and the new

The gardens are splendid, making use of the moat which is part water feature and part lawns with extensive flower borders

 

So here is the great hall of the palace with its magnificent timber ceiling (and a few other tourists). This was made into a gigantic sitting room by the Coutaulds.

The modern house is, unsurprisingly, more suited to living accommodation. It is brilliantly designed, all leading off a circular room, the perfect place to meet and drink with guests.

Some of the guest bedrooms are surprisingly modest, but nice enough,

 The pet ring-tailed lemur had a "room" to himself

 Ginny Courtauld's bedroom is the most lavish, especially the bathroom, but its not ostentatious. They had rather better taste than the modern sheikhs and oligarchs who are almost the definition of too much money and too little idea of what to do with it.

 Her husband's room is more modest.

 From this bedroom wing one comes out onto the minstrel's gallery and so a view over the medieval hall.

 Back downstairs and off the circular room there is another living room essentially used as a gallery for the inevitable collection of Italian paintings and Chinese porcelain, but all tasteful and modest in scale.

The dining room is the most art deco in style of all the rooms.

The basements have now been opened up so one can go into what was used as the bomb shelters in the War. With snooker room of course.