Durham House (London)
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Durham House or Durham Inn, the historic London residence of the Bishop of Durham, on the Strand.
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[edit] History
[edit] Origins
It was originally built by bishop Thomas Hatfield around 1345 as a fine large building that included a chapel as well as a high hall with marble pillars. It had its gatehouse on the Strand side, passing under which you came into a large courtyard, with the hall and chapel facing you, and with private apartments looking on to the river.
It was described as a noble palace, befitting the Prince - Bishops of Durham, and like the Savoy Palace was nearer to the river than the street, since the river rather than the road was the principal thoroughfare through London and from London to Westminster. Henry IV and his son Henry, Prince of Wales stayed there with their retinues on one occasion.
[edit] Tudor and Jacobean
It remained an episcopal palace until Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall gifted it to Henry the Eighth, who promised (but never gave) him Coldharbour and other houses in return. Henry granted Durham House to his daughter Elizabeth for life, or until she was otherwise advanced. As king, his son Edward confirmed this grant (and deprived Tunstall of his see), but the house was taken from her and given back to Tunstall (along with his see) by Mary on Mary's accession when it became apparent he no longer had any London residence.
Elizabeth then finally took it back and deprived him of his see again on her own accession, keeping it in her own possession until 1583, when she granted it to Sir Walter Raleigh, who spent £2000 on repairs and lived there until the death of Elizabeth. John Aubrey said that he well remembered the room which Raleigh used as his study, which was in a little turret that looked into and over the Thames, with a view of the Thames round the curve to Westminster, Whitehall Palace and towards the Surrey hills.
Elizabeth's death and Raleigh's resulting loss of influence at court led to Tobias Matthew, the then bishop of Durham, to claim it back for the see from the Privy Council. They did so, with the new king's blessing.
[edit] Decline
Neither Matthews nor any of his successors resided there, and it must have become ruinous. The stables were turned into the "New Exchange," with an upper and lower range of shops, on each side of a central alley, and occupied by milliners and sempstresses.
The best portion of the house was tenanted by Lord Keeper Coventry, who died here in 1640; and what remained of it was subsequently obtained by Philip Herbert, 5th Earl of Pembroke. He rented it from the see for £200 per annum and intended to have built a fine house on the site but never got round to it and instead made a street through the old remains down to the river, called Durham Street, whose upper portion at the Strand end still exists, a short, steep street, plunging down under the Society of Arts and disappearing in the gloom of the dark arches of the Adelphi.
The last portion of the ruins was cleared away early in the reign of George the Third, when the brothers Robert Adam and James Adam built the Adelphi Buildings, raising the whole level on lofty arches.
[edit] Source
[edit] See also
Other Strand mansions
