St James Palace (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
St James's Palace

In the civil parish of City Of Westminster.
In the historic county of London and Middlesex.
Modern Authority of London Borough of Westminster.
1974 county of Greater London.
Medieval County of Middlesex.

OS Map Grid Reference: TQ29358004
Latitude 51.50488° Longitude -0.13788°

St James Palace has been described as a certain Palace.

There are major building remains.

This is a Grade 1 listed building protected by law*.

Description

Royal palace constructed in 1531 on the site of a former leper hospital (Which had had a crenellated tower). It originally comprised a manor house with four courtyards and a gate house. It has a complex history of alterations and additions including damage by a major fire in 1809. The palace became the official royal residence in 1702 and continued in use until the 1830s when Buckingham House was constructed. It is still used for accommodation for members of the royal family. It is the senior palace of the Royal Court and residence of the Marshal of the Diplomatic Corps and foreign diplomatic missions to the UK are accredited to the Court of St James.

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Listed Building number(s) 1264851
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 401435404943.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 206564.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Wikipedia entry
  Royal Family
Books
- Goodall, John, 2011, The English Castle 1066-1650 (Yale University Press) p. 479
  Cooper, Nicholas, 1999, Houses of the Gentry, 1480-1680 (Yale University Press) p. 83
  Thurley, Simon, 1993, The Royal Palaces of Tudor England (Yale University Press)
  James, T.B., 1990, The Palaces of Medieval England (London; Seaby) p. 158, 163
  Colvin, H.M., Ransome, D.R. and Summerson, John, 1982, The history of the King's Works, Vol. 4: 1485-1660 (part 2) (London) p. 241-52
  Pevsner, N. (Revised by Cherry, Bridget), 1973, Buildings of England: London: the Cities of London and Westminster (London, Penguin) p. 472
  RCHME, 1925, Inventory of Historic Monuments in London Vol. 2: West London (HMSO) p. 128-32 online transcription
  Page, Wm (ed), 1911, VCH Middlesex p. 291
  Timbs, J. and Gunn, A., 1872, Abbeys, Castles and Ancient Halls of England and Wales Vol. 1 (London) p. 148-50 online copy
Periodical Articles
- Baille, M., 1967, 'Etiquette and planning of the state apartments in baroque palaces' Archaeologia Vol. 101 p. 177-8
Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)
- Speed, John, 1611-12, The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain online copy)
  Anthony van den Wyngaerde, c. 1543, Panorama of London online copy
  Celia Fiennes, 1888, Through England on a Side Saddle in the Time of William and Mary (London: Field and Tuer, The Leadenhall Press) Vision of Britain online transcription
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Thurley, Simon, 1991, English Royal Palaces, 1450-1550 (unpub PhD thesis; London) p. 214-28 (available via EThOS)

Most of the sites or buildings recorded in this web site are NOT open to the public and permission to visit a site must always be sought from the landowner or tenant.
It is an offence to disturb a Scheduled Monument without consent. It is a destruction of everyone's heritage to remove archaeological evidence from ANY site without proper recording and reporting.
Don't use metal detectors on historic sites without authorisation.

The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of Historic England, County Historic Environment Records and other individuals and organisations. It may also contain information licensed under the Open Government Licence. All the sources given should be consulted to identify the original copyright holder and permission obtained from them before use of the information on this site for commercial purposes.
The author and compiler of Gatehouse does not receive any income from the site and funds it himself. The information within this site is provided freely for educational purposes only.

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.

Please help to make this as useful a resource as possible by contacting Gatehouse if you see errors, can add information or have suggestions for improvements in functality and design.
Help is acknowledged.

*The listed building may not be the actual medieval building, but a building on the site of, or incorporating fragments of, the described site.

Data >	PastScape	County HER		Listing	I. O. E.
Maps >	Streetmap	NLS maps	Where's the path	Old-Maps
Data/Maps >	Magic	V. O. B.	Geology	LiDAR	Open Domesday
Air Photos >	Bing Maps	Google Maps	Getmapping	ZoomEarth
Photos >	CastleFacts	Geograph	Flickr	Panoramio