Henbury Bishops Palace (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Henbury in the Saltmarsh; Westbury on Trym

In the civil parish of Bristol.
In the historic county of Gloucestershire.
Modern Authority of Bristol; City of.
1974 county of Avon.
Medieval County of Gloucestershire.

OS Map Grid Reference: ST562787
Latitude 51.50575° Longitude -2.63247°

Henbury Bishops Palace has been described as a certain Palace.

There are no visible remains.

Description

Soon after the Conquest the bishops of Worcester founded a Palace here (Henbury) and imparked many acres. Thomas Peverell the sixtieth bishop died here in 1418, and Henry Wakefield, his predecessor, issued a Mandate there against Wickliffe in 1387. Some ruinous buildings near the Church seem to mark the site of the Palace, which was their occasional residence (Bigland). (PastScape)

Domesday refers to a wood one mile square in the manor of Henbury, held by the bishops of Worcester. There are traces of ancient woodland on the estate, with ridge and furrow and old field boundaries in the parkland south of Blaise Castle House and the remains of an Iron Age hillfort on Blaise Hill. After the Dissolution, and the seizure of the estate by the Crown, Henbury was granted to Sir Ralph Sadlier, of Standon in Hertfordshire. Henbury was sub-let by the Sadliers until they sold it in lots in 1675. A substantial part was purchased by Sir Samuel Astry, whose father-in-law, George Morse had built a house, known as Henbury Great House, on land in the village purchased from the Sadliers some ten years earlier. After Morse's death in 1688, Astry took over and enlarged the house and made formal gardens to the north, and planted a double avenue to a summerhouse on the top of Blaise Hill. The whole layout is depicted in an engraving by Kip published in 1712 (Atkyns 1712).
Blaise Castle House (1795-9, listed grade II star) was built for John Scandrett Harford by the Bristol architect, William Paty. It is situated just a few metres north-east of the site of the old manor house occupied by Thomas Farr (National Heritage List entry. Parks and Gardens 4181 Blaise Castle and Hamlet)

Sources of information, references and further reading

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 198198.
Further information may be available from the holder of the county Historic Environment Record.

Books
- Emery, Anthony, 2000, Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales Vol. 2 East Anglia, Central England and Wales (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) p. 466
  Thompson, M.W., 1998, Medieval bishops' houses in England and Wales (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing) p. 187
  Dyer, C., 1980, Lords and Peasants in a Changing Society: The Estates of the Bishopric of Worcester, 680-1540 (Cambridge University Press)
  Bigland, R., 1792, Historical, Monumental and Genealogical Collections Relative to the County of Gloucester Vol. 2 p. 70
  Atkyns, R., 1712, The Ancient and Present State of Gloucestershire p. 473-4
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Payne, Naomi, 2003, The medieval residences of the bishops of Bath and Wells, and Salisbury (PhD Thesis University of Bristol) Appendix B: List of Medieval Bishop's Palaces in England and Wales (available via EThOS)

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The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

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