Portal:South East England/Selected article/8

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Nonsuch Palace was a Tudor royal palace that was built by Henry VIII in Surrey, on the location of Cuddington, near Epsom (the church and village of Cuddington were destroyed to create the plot for the palace). The palace was broken up in the late 17th century, and parts were incorporated into other buildings. No trace of the palace remains on its site, but some pieces are held by the British Museum.

Nonsuch Palace was arguably the greatest of Henry VIII's building projects. Building work began on 22 April 1538, at the start of Henry's 30th year of reign and only six months after the birth of his son, later Edward VI. The palace was designed to be a celebration of the power and the grandeur of the Tudor dynasty, built to rival Francis I's Château de Chambord. Unlike most of Henry's palaces, Nonsuch was not an adaptation of an old building; he choose to build a new palace in this location because it was near to one of his main hunting grounds. The palace took nine years to build and cost at least £24,000 (a king's ransom at the time) due to its rich ornamentation. It was a key work in the introduction of elements of renaissance design to England.