User:Gpier66/Esher Palace

The first Tudor palace?

Penny Rainbow's house on the river Mole, in Esher, is unlike any other in Surrey's swish stockbroker belt. Now known as Wayneflete Tower, after the man who had it built, William Waynflete (1398-1486), it is also sometimes referred to as Wolsey's Tower on account of the fact that Wolsey stayed there for a time after he was compelled to give Hampton Court to Henry VIII. Either way, the tower is all that remains of the 15th-century Esher Palace – a building that was so grand that it inspired the design of Hampton Court, just a few miles downstream, where the river Mole joins the Thames.

Penny wanted to know what her palace would have looked like five centuries or so ago. Over three days Time Team pieced together the story of a site that evolved into one of the most stunning buildings of early Tudor times. Tony and the Team set about digging up her garden as they tried to identify what might remain of the palace, built towards the end of the Wars of the Roses for the fantastically wealthy bishops of Winchester.

Penny had a special interest in William Wayneflete (1398-1486), who became bishop of Winchester in 1447 and was lord chancellor from 1456-59. Wayneflete survived both the Hundred Years War (which ended in 1453) and the Wars of the Roses (1455-1485), outliving seven kings and making it into the start of the reign of an eighth, Henry VII, who founded the Tudor dynasty. As well as the palace at Esher Place, he was responsible for other important buildings that helped to establish the Tudor architectural style, most notably those of Eton College and Magdalen College, Oxford, for both of which he was the principal benefactor. Penny, a great fan of Wayneflete, hoped that Time Team's investigation would help to consolidate his reputation – and that of the tower he built, as part of possibly the first Tudor palace.

What they found

The tower that is now Penny Rainbow's home was originally built in the latter half of the 15th century as a massive, four-storey gate house for William Wayneflete's Esher Palace. There had been buildings here since at least the 11th century, and the palace was built on the site of an existing medieval manor, incorporating and extending what already stood there as well as adding to it. Other changes, improvements and additions were made subsequently before it was all demolished, with the exception of the tower, in 1678. Henry Pelham built a new mansion on the site, incorporating the tower, in 1729.

A detailed map, dating from 1606, shows the palace largely as it must have been for most of the Tudor period. But with so many different phases of building, demolition and rebuilding, it wasn't a straightforward matter of uncovering what was left of Wayneflete's original buildings.

Nor was it entirely easy to accomplish one of Time Team's principal objectives in this programme – to pin down an accurate date for the likely construction of the tower, which was known only slightly vaguely as being towards the end of Wayneflete's life in the late 15th century. Time Team had brought in former regular digger, and now dendrochronologist, Mick Worthington to try to come up with a date through tree-ring dating of some of the timbers in the tower. But so many changes and so much restoration work had been carried out over the years that it was difficult to identify a suitable timber that could be safely associated with the tower's construction.

Eventually, though, 'Mick the Twig' was able to take a suitable sample, which came back with a date for the felling of the tree from which the timber was taken. This was within the period 1462-72, making the tower of slightly earlier construction than had been thought previously. Strictly speaking, therefore, Esher Palace was not a Tudor palace at all, since the Tudor dynasty didn't start until Henry VII seized the throne in 1485. There was no doubt, though, that this was the forerunner of the great Tudor palaces, such as Hampton Court – and with brickwork and certain other features that were in some respects superior.

With the help of the map and other records, and the geophysics survey of the site, the science of which particularly impressed owner Penny Rainbow, Time Team's diggers were also able to pin down the layout of Wayneflete's palace with trenches that came down on most of its major features. As well as the tower, or gate house, itself, these included a high curtain wall adjoining it, the great hall and associated buildings used as kitchens and so on, and – most spectacular of all, even bigger than the gate house, a huge castle-like keep. The foundations of the octagonal corner turrets to this keep were uncovered – with more than a little help and persuasion from Penny Rainbow herself – towards the end of the third day. It was, as Tony said, 'the perfect end to our three days in Esher, uncovering a major brick-built palace that had been lost for 300 years'.