1300–1930 The original palace was given to
Edward II in 1305 by the
Bishop of Durham,
Anthony Bek, and used as a
royal residence from the 14th to the 16th century. According to one account, the incident which inspired
Edward III's foundation of the
Order of the Garter took place here. As the favourite palace of
Henry IV, it played host to
Manuel II Palaiologos, the only
Byzantine emperor ever to visit England, from December 1400 to mid-February 1401, with a
joust being given in his honour. There is still a jousting
tilt yard. The 1401 Eltham tournament was described or commemorated in literary form as thirteen letters, in old French, addressed to Henry's daughter
Blanche of England. Each letter, purportedly written by a legendary patron, praises one of the combatants. Two of them, William Bardolf and John Clinton, are identified by their heraldry. The letters were probably read aloud during the event.
Edward IV built the
Great Hall in the 1470s, and the future
Henry VIII grew up here; it was here in 1499 that he met and impressed the scholar
Erasmus, introduced to him by
Thomas More. Erasmus described the occasion:
Tudor courts often used the palace for their Christmas celebrations. With the grand rebuilding of
Greenwich Palace, which was more easily reached by river, Eltham was less frequented, save for the hunting in its enclosed parks, easily reached from Greenwich, "as well enjoyed, the Court lying at Greenwiche, as if it were at this house it self". The deer remained plentiful in the Great Park, of , the Little, or Middle Park, of , and the Home Park, or Lee Park, of . The courtier
Roger Aston was keeper of the little park at Eltham in 1610 and built four bridges for the convenience of
James VI and I. In the 1630s, by which time the palace was no longer used by the royal family, Sir
Anthony van Dyck was given the use of a suite of rooms as a country retreat. During the
English Civil War, the parks were denuded of trees and deer.
John Evelyn saw it 22 April 1656: "Went to see his Majesty's house at Eltham; both the palace and chapel in miserable ruins, the noble wood and park destroyed by
Rich the rebel". The palace never recovered. Eltham was bestowed by
Charles II on
John Shaw and in its ruinous condition— reduced to Edward IV's Great Hall, the former
buttery, called "Court House", a bridge across the moat and some walling—remained with Shaw's descendants as late as 1893. Fragments of the walls of other buildings remain visible around the gardens, and the 15th-century bridge still crosses the moat. Eltham Palace Panorama.jpg|The south side of the palace, with the medieval great hall on the left Joseph Mallord William Turner - Interior of St. John's Palace, Eltham - Google Art Project.jpg|JMW Turner's painting of the great hall 1793 Eltham Palace, April 2018 (4).jpg|The great hall in 2018
1930–present In 1933,
Stephen Courtauld and his wife
Virginia "Ginie" Courtauld (née Peirano) acquired a 99-year lease on the palace site and commissioned
Seely & Paget to restore the hall and create a modern home attached to it. Seely and Paget added a minstrel's gallery and a timber screen to the hall, while creating a design for the main house inspired by
Christopher Wren's work at
Hampton Court Palace and
Trinity College, Cambridge. The home was decorated internally in the
Art Deco style. The entrance hall was created by
Swedish designer Rolf Engströmer; light floods in from a glazed dome, highlighting blackbean veneer and figurative marquetry. Other rooms in the house, including the dining room, drawing room and Virginia Courtauld's circular bedroom and adjoining bathroom, were the work of the Italian designer
Piero Malacrida de Saint-August, while Seely and Paget designed many of the bedrooms. The Courtaulds' pet
lemur,
Mah-Jongg, had a special room on the upper floor of the house which had a hatch to the downstairs flower room; he had the run of the house. The Courtaulds remained at Eltham until 1944. During the earlier part of the war, Stephen Courtauld was a member of the local
Civil Defence Service. In September 1940 he was on duty on the Great Hall roof as a fire watcher when it was badly damaged by
German incendiary bombs. In 1944, the Courtauld family moved to Scotland then to
Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), giving the palace to the
Royal Army Educational Corps in March 1945; the corps then moved all its administration to Eltham Palace in 1948. Following the formation of the Educational and Training Services Branch of the new
Adjutant General's Corps, staff moved to
Worthy Down Camp in
Hampshire in 1992. In 1995,
English Heritage assumed management of the palace, and in 1999, completed major repairs and restorations of the interiors and gardens. File:Eltham Palace moat.jpg|Moat File:Eltham Palace garden.jpg|Garden File:South Bridge Eltham Palace 01.JPG|South Bridge ==Filming==