Pete's Favourite Things

Eltham Palace has a wide range of Art Deco furnishings and artworks.

The Palace shows that it was at the forefront of modern innovation as it has a built-in vacuum cleaning system. There were outlets in every room where the cleaner would plug in a hose and a centralised collection system in the basement.

In the past couple of years, English Heritage has opened some of the rooms in the basement which were used by the Courtaulds as a bomb-shelter during WWII. These include a dark room for developing photographs and a billiard room.

Further details of visiting can be found at http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/eltham-palace-and-gardens/

Each of the Bedrooms at Eltham Palace is individually designed and decorated.

The Pear Bedroom, so called because all the furnishings are made from Pearwood.

The Venetian Suite

Virginia Courtauld’s suite themed on a classical temple

My personal favourite bedroom in the house. I love the wall prints and the wooden furnishings plus that hidden door.

On the opposite side of the entrance hall from the drawing room is the Dining Room. It is the most strikingly art deco room in the whole house.

The Italian themed drawing room is entered directly from the entrance hall.

It is a lovely spacious room and was probably a guests first impression of the house when they arrived.

The Courtaulds moved into their new house in 1933 and stayed there until  May 1944 when they finally decided to move away from London because of the bombing. The house was leased to the Royal Army Educational Corps as a base from which it ran army schools overseas and administered examinations. The RAEC remained at Eltham until 1992.

RAEC at Eltham in the 1960s

The house passed to the Ministry of Works. A programme of repairs was carried out and it was opened to the public with the focus on the medieval remains on the site. English Heritage acquired responsibility for the Great Hall in 1984 and for the whole site in 1995 and set about a major refurbishment plan for the 20th century part of the property, the first stage of which took 5 years. A further set of rooms were opened to the public in 2013 following refurbishment.

Restoring the house to the 1930s look during the 1995-9 restoration

The Great Hall 1900

In the early 1930’s, Stephen and Virginia Courtauld were looking for land on the edge of London to build a house and they settled on the site at Eltham, taking out a 99-year lease from the Crown.

The builders in the 1930’s demolishing the farm buildings to make way for the new house. The Great Hall can be seen in the background

Their plan for Eltham was to build an ultra-modern home whilst retaining as much as possible of the historic palace. This was a challenging commitment and aroused some controversy at the time. The Great Hall was to be restored and incorporated into the house, whilst many of the other remains were to be incorporated into garden features, thus maintaining the historical remains intact.

The completed house incorporating the Medieval Great hall (top left)

The exterior of the new house, in a ‘Wrenaissance’ style partly inspired by Hampton Court, is designed to complement the great hall. The interior styles (ranging from historical to moderne) resulted both from the Courtaulds’ own tastes and from the architects, designers and craftsmen they commissioned.

              The connection of 20th and 15th centuries (left) and the grand entrance to the house (right).