Well, this week is once again on a subject a bit outside of the run of normal industrial heritage items. Going through ‘The Industrial Archaeology of South-East London’ I’ve come to ‘Bridge, Eltham Palace ’. Now industrial heritage publications generally cover ‘bridges’ but they tend to be ones from the 19th century, or later, which have particular construction methods or a famous engineer I charge.
I am all for talking about Eltham and the Palace and I am very aware that we go on and on and on about ‘Royal Greenwich’ and say very little about this older, maybe rather more important, bit of Royal infrastructure. Eltham Palace was a major site used by the later medieval kings but which was more or less abandoned by royalty before the 17th century.
Clearly all the things I’ve been saying about Royal Palaces – with reference to Greenwich - also apply to Eltham. When it was the seat of government the amount of people who would be needed to staff it - just the very basic functions - would have been phenomenal. I note a Christmas banquet there for 2000 in 1482 – just think through the logistics of putting that on. There would also have been a major military presence – security and ceremonial staff. What is now a series of idyllic gardens would have been very different?
I am also aware that there is a large body of Eltham historians who have all written notes and given talks and are very, very knowledgeable. Whatever I write about Eltham Palace and this bridge is going to be coloured by my lack of knowledge about what they have written. I am very open to be corrected so please get on to me and I will hopefully be able to put out the correction with a credit and my thanks. Much of my information comes from a book by Roy Brook, published in 1959
So, what does it say about the bridge in SELIA: ‘Bridge. Eltham Palace. A red brick mediaeval bridge of four unequal pointed arches carries the roadway across the moat into Eltham Palace. The bridge is surmounted by a modern parapet. ‘
Now, whatever we see at Eltham is going to be affected by its use in the past 600 years. One guidebook says, in effect: ‘don’t be beguiled by what you see – because now it’s all 1930s landscaping’. For many years the site was used as a farm and then, in the early 20th century, the very wealthy and arty Courtaulds redesigned the whole place and built an amazing art deco home complete with internal lemur passageways (and if you haven’t seen it please go at once because it is totally amazing).
There are actually two mediaeval bridges at Eltham but the other one never seems to get mentioned –although both are Grade I listed. I have however seen a photograph of the ‘other’ – the south bridge - when it was being rebuilt for the Courtaulds and the work looks fairly radical. So-what is new and what has been rebuilt? And was the rebuilding genuine repair work or did they create a pastiche of the original?
I need to get to the north bridge which is the famous one and iis now – and was - the main entrance to the Palace, taking us in across the moat. We also need to think about the moat. Clearly once there was a moat in place a bridge was needed
A grand house seems to have been built at Eltham at the end of the 12th century and it appears to have had a moat. The bridge over this moat was probably wooden – some money was spent on repairing a wooden bridge in 1368. Then, in 1396 money was allocated for a new bridge with an order for ‘ashlar’, ‘the finest stone masonry, generally rectangular and precisely cut ", It seems to have been a drawbridge, remains of which were found in the southern arch in the 19th century. This wooden bridge, built in the reign of Richard II, was clearly a basis for a later bridge.
Nearly a hundred years later, under the Yorkist king, Edward IV, the bridge over the moat was rebuilt, the drawbridge remains were removed and it became a permanent carriageway of brick and stone. It is this bridge which is generally seen as the original of what is there now. Some sources think it was actually nwy built under Edward IV rather than being an update of the bridge built earlier. One of my mentors has pointed out to me that the builders of the bridge had the best of national resources in supplies of stone, unlike the mainly monastic road bridge authorities who had to use wood. He also pointed out that the bridge would remain in good condition since it spanned a moat rather than a river, so there would be a lesser problem of scour.
An article in a magazine of 1812 says there was a gate house on the bridge and I wonder what size that was. The other week I did an article about the Beresford Gate in Woolwich - surely it was not as big as that. But it would have to be big enough to have at least one member of staff posted in it – in reality there were probably more than one and perhaps some sort of facility for other armed guards and soldiers. This would have changed the entire look of the bridge as it now goes across the Moat to the Palace.
Some more repairs were done on the bridge under Henry VIII but gradually the Palace was abandoned and left unused. By the early 19th Century the site was used for farming. The moat was always dry and there are pictures of animals grazing under the arches of the bridge, which is itself overgrown with grass and bushes. There was a buttress to prevent the bridge from collapsing and the centre arches are bricked up at one end and used as a shed for carts. I suppose this was the era of romantic runs and decay.
By the end of the 19th Century there is water in the moat and two cottages stood on either side of the bridge, built out of the old materials of the Palace and standing ‘like sentinels’. There began to be concerns about protecting what remained. In 1911 the Office of Works began a programme of works of restoration. In 1913 Lewisham Borough News sent a correspondent along to the Palace to see what is going on and they were shocked by ‘the changed aspect of the old bridge across the moat … the brick walls on each side present sort of newness which seems a little out of harmony with what we remember’ The bricks used for repair were not new having been taken from an old wall. Coping stones had been placed in position and cemented in place more firmly. It was said there was a real danger of the bridge falling outward and that this had been stopped. The bed of the bridge had been paved and ‘the ancient walls of the moat denuded of their Ivy’. At around this time Mr Gregory wrote a history of Palace and organised a series of visits to it, recorded in local newspapers, by such bodies as the Church of England Men’s Society and their lady friends. As they crossed the bridge to reach the glories of the Royal area ‘Mr Gregory pointed out that the old Edward IV Bridge is a veritable gem and he knew of no bridge more beautiful or more symmetrical or more perfect than this’.
So to the 1930s and the arrival of the millionaire Courtaulds - Stephen Courtauld and his wife had a 99 year lease on the estate from 1933 and proceeded to change it into art deco wonderland with mediaeval outliers. They also redesigned the garden which included the bridge. This time new coping on the top of the bridge is thought to have been salvaged from the crenelated parapet in the great hall in the 19th century. Today Historic England’s site managers describe it as ‘the oldest still working bridge in London’.
I started off by wondering why SELIA included this bridge as an item of industrial archaeology - and I’m still really not sure why. It is an old bridge which SELIA doesn’t say very much about and has got some details wrong.
Clearly when the Palace was in use as a Royal building it would have been the main entrance and hopefully an impressive bridge – with its extremely expensive stone. It has also been ‘restored’ by the Office of Works and then by the Courtaulds and I am far from sure how like the original bridge it now is- and whether it ever was an original construction or a series of rebuilds. Obviously it had to be made usable and safe and I’m not sure if it was rebuilt as near as possible to what had been there before or if it was built as what they thought it ought to have looked like. We actually seem to know very little about it - with few pictures and remedial works only identified from entries in the accounts.
Did I mention that the internal structure of the house –as built for the Courtaulds – includes inbuilt runs for Mah Jongg, their lemur?? Now that is something a bit different!
And – don’t forget if you have never been to Eltham Palace – go – go now! You can see the grandest medieval hall and a house with interior decorations only the very very wealthiest could consider – and you cross the oldest medieval bridge in London to get to it.
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