Nonsuch Palace Nonsuch Palace in Surrey was perhaps the grandest of Henry VIIIs building projects. It was built on the site of Cuddington, near Ewell in South London, (West of Sutton & Croydon), the church and village having been destroyed and compensation paid to create a suitable site. Work started on 22 April 1538, the first day of Henrys thirtieth regnal year, and six months after the birth of his son, later Edward VI. Within two months the name Nonsuch appears in the building accounts, so called because it was claimed there was no such palace elsewhere equal to it in magnificence. Construction had been substantially carried out by 1541, but it would take several more years to complete. As the Royal Household took possession of vast tracts of surrounding acreage, several major roads were re-routed or by-passed to circumvent what became Nonsuch Great Park. The palace was designed to be a celebration of the power and the grandeur of the Tudor dynasty, built to rival Francis Is Château de Chambord. Unlike most of Henrys palaces, Nonsuch was not an adaptation of an old building; he chose to build a new palace in this location because it was near to one of his main hunting grounds. The palace cost at least £24,000 (in todays standards..£104 million in 2009) because of its rich ornamentation and is considered a key work in the introduction of elements of Renaissance design to England. The palace was incomplete when Henry VIII died in 1547. In 1556 Queen Mary I sold it to the 19th Earl of Arundel who completed it. It returned to royal hands in the 1590s, and remained royal property until 1670, when Charles II gave it to his mistress, Barbara, Countess of Castlemaine. She had it pulled down around 1682–3 and sold off the building materials to pay gambling debts. Some elements were incorporated into other buildings; for example the wood panelling can still be seen today in the Great Hall at Loseley Park. No trace of the palace remains on its site today but some pieces are held by the British Museum. There is, however, a discernible rise of land where the old Cuddington church used to be, before it was demolished to make way for the palace. (Nonsuch Palace should not be confused with Nonsuch Mansion, which is at the east of the park, nor its associated banqueting hall whose foundations are still visible to the south east of the palace site.)
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 19:49:43 +0000
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