1,000 years of hidden English history

Eltham, is not an ordinary London suburb

Even the old village church was not spared by the Puritans.

All the ornaments and symbols were removed from the walls and the whole place was whitewashed. The font was removed and a pewter bowl was used in its place.

We are told that Nathaniel Rich came to Eltham to protect the manor from plunderers, but he came too late because the mischief had been done.

Anyhow, in 1651, he purchased the manor and what remained of the park for £34,123, and so he did very well for himself.

In 1660, when the monarchy was restored, he was sent to prison, but again he was lucky. The King soon released him, and as he was not directly responsible for the execution of Charles I, he was forgiven.

The manor now reverted to the Crown, but of course the palace was in ruins.

All the outer buildings had been pulled down, the valuable materials had been sold at a profit by Nathaniel Rich.

Only the Great Hall remained, and this, believe it or not, was used as a barn.

Everyone waited for to visit Eltham, but now, with no palace, there was nothing for a king to visit.

All that remained of the glorious past were a couple of Tudor fireplaces, which came from the palace, and these were lovingly built into the fabric of the Greyhound Inn.

They are there to this day.

But a gentleman called Sir John Shaw arrived in their vandalised village and proceeded to build himself a beautiful new house.

King Charles II, in his generous way, had not only knighted Sir John but had leased him the manor for a song.

Sir John now had all rights of hunting, hawking, and fishing for £9 a year, with 20 shillings extra for the old house, in case he wanted to use it.

This was because Sir John, a vintner, had made a fortune in the city of London and had lent money to the penniless Charles at the time of his exile. Charles never forgot such things.

In 1665 Sir John became a baronet, receiving £500 a year from Charles for the rest of his life.

The locals even helped with the work of building Eltham Lodge for Sir John,

Today it is the Royal Blackheath Golf Club and by far the most handsome house in the village.

The highlight of the interior was, and is, the decorated staircase.

In the dining-room on the first floor, overlooking the old deer park which is now the golf course, it is pleasant to see that the oak-leaf (symbol of Charles II) is represented in the mouldings.

Better still, the name of the first owner can still be seen over the huge fire-place, carved carefully into the upper cornice of the woodwork.

Hugh May, a colleague of , was the architect who designed Eltham Lodge in the style of the English Renaissance.

On the ground floor the blue and white parlour has walls richly decorated with rococo plaster work to frame the portraits of Roman emperors. Nearly all the rooms have exquisite ceilings.

It must surely be the most interesting and perhaps the most beautiful golf house in the world today.

Sir John Shaw, who gave us this building, made himself part of the village life, attending the village church on Sunday mornings, even building a family vault.

The villagers had quite a shock in the year 1667, on Midsummer's Day, when the old church suddenly fell down.

It was not exactly Sir John's fault but somehow, through the carelessness of those at work on building his family vault, precautions were not taken to secure the wall of the nave, and so the fabric came down with a crash.

After that it was never quite the same for the whole church had to be rebuilt and redesigned and restored - which was done, naturally, with the help of Sir John.

It lasted quite a long time, nearly 200 more years, but the present building is late Victorian.

After that the Shaw family remained at Eltham Lodge until 1820, and most of them were buried in their own vault.

So now the village of Eltham was a lonely little village.

The Roper family, who had lived for generations at Well Wall, was almost forgotten, and their ancient home was demolished.

The Shaw family had left Eltham Lodge after nearly 200 years.

That, too, might soon be demolished.

The Banqueting Hall was now just a barn.

At one time, adding insult to injury, it was even used as a tennis court.

For a little while it seemed there was no hope for Eltham, a village with a once glorious past, a home for kings and queens until Oliver Cromwell destroyed the palace.

What would a king or a queen or any sensible person see in a place like Eltham?

But things were not quite so bad as the villagers thought.

Their Banqueting Hall was soon to be rescued, while Eltham Lodge became much more important as the home of the Royal Blackheath Golf Club,

The final Royal visit to the village came in 1977 when Queen Elizabeth II paid a visit on her Jubilee tour.

The last little bit of Eltham's long history is unexpected and in many ways quite fascinating to those who enjoy the story.

It involves Mrs. Wood, the old lady who lived at Eltham Lodge and refused to leave it even when her husband died.

During Mrs. Wood's time the walls of the billiard room were covered with an ugly paper. Someone found a small hole in the wallpaper, poked it, and discovered some fine old tapestries buried underneath like a treasure.

These were a gift from Charles II to Sir John Shaw at the time when the house was built.

While this old lady was living at Eltham Lodge, enclosed by the great park, entertaining her visitors in beautiful rooms and peaceful gardens, much was happening over at the Blackheath Golf Club.

Since the days of King James I, the game had become almost as important in England as the sport of hunting.

At Blackheath, uniforms were worn. Golfers wore scarlet jackets and white waistcoats, rather like huntsmen, and club members met for their annual dinner at the Green Man, a public house which used to stand at the top of Blackheath Hill.

Of course there was much betting and a book was kept recording all wagers, to be paid in gallons of claret - or the equivalent number of guineas to the club funds.

In 1856 traffic on the heath forced members to play in club uniform, and caddies were provided with red flags and caps to warn passers-by.

By this time the reputation of the club was high.

Not only did they claim to be the oldest Golf Club in the world but they actually won the golf tournament at St Andrews in the year 1857, beating the Royal and Ancient St Andrew's Golf Club by seven unforgettable holes!

All this glory and excitement came to an end in 1914, and after the war, owing to the heavy traffic on Blackheath, golfers decided that Eltham was a better place to play.

They moved into Eltham Lodge in 1923, and played golf in the huge park which was used in the old days for the hunting of red deer by kings and queens.

Naturally the villagers were delighted to receive them.

It is thought to be the oldest Golf Club House in the England, and a fitting home for one of the oldest Golf Clubs in the world.

Meanwhile, over at the Banqueting Hall, with its wonderful hammer-beam roof (like the one at Westminster Hall) something else was happening, or beginning to happen.

A horrible scheme was being hatched, and a new housing estate, almost touching the ancient walls of their best and oldest building, the beloved Banqueting Hall, was about to attack the village like a hideous bout of architectural 'flu.

But the scheme was put aside. To the joy of the villagers the Courtauld family arrived in Eltham, and everything began to change for the better.

Sir Stephen Courtauld seems to have been a man with a dream. Like Sir John Shaw, he was a rich man looking for a place to build a beautiful house, and then he heard about the fate of Eltham, and the threat to the palace, from his friend, the Bishop of Chester.

At once he took inspiration. He was able to lease from the Crown the entire moated area, including the Banqueting Hall and some fifty acres of land.

Some people were slightly shocked when they heard of his plan to build a new palace and to pull down the farm buildings which he considered had no business to be there.

One critic described Sir Stephen's dream palace as an "unfortunately situated cigarette factory"

In the end, most people decided that Sir Stephen was right, and when the Courtauld family were visited by the late Queen Mary, who placed a Silver Jubilee medallion in the loggia, they were sure of it.

The new palace turned out to be a masterpiece.

It stood between the charming old bridge used by King Richard II and the Banqueting Hall created in the time of King Edward IV and used later by King Henry VIII.

Somehow the new building blended perfectly with the ancient building.

In English Renaissance style of soft coloured brick and Slipsham stone, the palace had two wings, joined sucpcisingly by a semicircle of arches and carved stone columns, and above this a balcony, with a stone balustrade, overlooking a circular lawn and the winding moat.

You enter the house through one of the arches.

Sir Stephen's palace is today well worth seeing and full of imagination.

Between the main entrance and the Banqueting Hall is a short facade in Tudor style, with stone mullioned windows of stained glass.

This was done to soften the transition from Renaissance to Gothic.

Before the last war, Sir Stephen must have spent a fortune on restoring the Great Hall to its former beauty.

When he had done all he could, carpeted the floor and furnished the huge room with antique chairs, tables, and coffers, he placed on the wall a touching inscription in Latin.

"This Hall, which the Great King Edward built in former days, having fallen into increasing ruin, has now been restored through the care of Virginia and Stephen."

One wishes the Roper family and the Shaw family, who did so much for Eltham, could read this inscription.

Unfortunately the Courtauld family were forced to leave their unusual home in May 1944. The palace had been struck by incendiary bombs but Sir Stephen had managed to keep the flames under control until the fire brigade arrived.

He established a warden's post in the basement and Virginia, his wife, became head of the local W.V.S.

In the end, with changing conditions, life in a palace became too difficult and Sir Stephen, the man with a dream, informed the Crown that he was prepared to surrender his long lease of 88 years.

There was sadness in the village when the Courtauld family left. What would happen to the palace now?

On 1st April 1945 Eltham Palace became an Army School of education for officers.

Later it became the permanent home of the Royal Army Educational Corps, and that is what it is today.

It is not quite the same as sharing their village with the Roper family, or the Shaw family, or the Courtauld family.

Times have changed. The past is almost forgotten. Nevertheless, they still have their moated palace, and their ancient stone bridge, and a row of Tudor houses well known to Cardinal Wolsey and King Henry VIII.

They still have Eltham Lodge and the Royal Blackheath Golf Club.

Americans may also be interested to know that comedian Bob Hope was born Leslie Townes Hope, in Eltham and the town has a theatre named after him to commemorate this fact.

After leaving for Cleveland in America, he changed his name for professional reasons.

Over 1,000 years of history affecting most of the world have taken place at Eltham, yet most people know little of it.

©1997 -