Home Improvement - Richmond Palace
I wake up - Saturday! - with my mile-long to-do list from taking Eitan to football to replacing the key-hole on the front door. In between I replace an electrical socket, untangle a shower hose, hang the kitchen clock, rake some leaves and sand down the bottom of a door which was scratching the hallway floor. I like doing this stuff, all by 3PM, when Marcus comes over to join Madeleine for some homework on the Tudors. We are off to the Richmond Museum, which is a couple of rooms above the local library. I learn a lot about the area including Richmond Palace which is no longer with us.
The Richmond Palace once a Thameside royal residence, 9 miles SW of the Palace of Westminster, and built around 1501 inside the royal manor of Sheen, by King Henry VII, formerly known by his title Earl of Richmond, after which the palace named. It was occupied by royalty until 1649. It replaced a former palace, itself built on the site of a royal Manor House. In 1500, immediately preceding the construction of the new "Richmond" Palace the following year, the town of Sheen which had grown up around the royal manor changed its name to "Richmond", by command of Henry VII. The 2 names continue to cause confusion since today's districts called "East Sheen" and "North Sheen" are now under the administrative control of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, were never in ancient times within Sheen manor, but were rather carved out, in recent times, of what was formerly the ancient adjoining manor of Mortlake. Got that? Richmond remained part of the County of Surrey until the mid-1960s, when it was absorbed by the expansion of London.
The Richmond Palace met its end following Charles I's execution in 1650. Now there are houses, themselves dating to the 18th and 19th centuries, between Richmond Green and the River Thames while the street names provide evidence of a different world: Old Palace Lane, Old Palace Yard and The Wardrobe.
Madeleine: "Can we pop into the Party Palace?"
Me: "You want to pop into the Party Palace?"
Madeleine: "Yes, can we pop in?"
Me: "Ok, let's just pop in for a moment."
Madeleine: "Ok. Let's pop in."
