Otford Palace, also known as the Archbishop's Palace, is in Otford, an English village and civil parish in the Sevenoaks District of Kent. The village is located on the River Darent, flowing north down its valley from its source on the North Downs. Since 2019, the site has been cared for and restored by The Archbishop’s Palace Conservation Trust (APCT), on a 99-year lease from Sevenoaks District Council.
History
Roman period
A fragment of a Chi Rho monogram painted on Roman wall-plaster, was recovered from the fill of a Norman drain filled in when the medieval Manor was enlarged by Archbishop Winchelsea early in the fourteenth century. This material came from the nearby Church Field Roman Villa and suggests that Otford was a site of Christian worship in Roman Britain.
Saxon Days
The King of Mercia, Offa, fought the Kentish Saxons in 776 at the Battle of Otford. In 791 (or possibly in the preceding year) Offa gave lands at Otford to Christ Church Canterbury (the 'vill by the name of Otford'). This was a very significant gift. It meant that the Monastery of Christ Church Canterbury and subsequently the Archbishops of Canterbury became the Lords of the Manor of Otford. The size of this piece of land was not recorded, but further gifts of land were made in 820 and 821. The first, by Coenwulf, King of Mercia and in the following year by Ceolwulf I, his brother and successor, who donated to Otford lands bordering the East bank of the River Darent between Shoreham and today's Bat and Ball. The second charter, in which Ceolwulf gives Wulfred, Archbishop of Canterbury, five plough lands consisting of two groups, one lying north-west of Kemsing and the other to the south-west, can be found in the British Museum.
A large, moated manor house was built here and enlarged over the next 600 years by 52 subsequent archbishops.
Until 1537, the palace was one of the chain of houses belonging to the archbishops of Canterbury. In 1500, the Court Roll stated that Otford was, "one of the grandest houses in England".
High Middle Ages
The estate was granted lands from the Thames to the border of Sussex, thus increasing the importance and size of the manor. In 1086 (Domesday Survey), it had six water mills and a large Demesne farm, worked by serfs. Later their obligations gradually became monetary, and their lives and status improved.
The manor was surrounded by a moat from early times. The island was enlarged three times, including that in Tudor times. The manor was enlarged by Archbishop Winchelsea (1294-1313), who died there. He constructed a magnificent chapel.
Otford manor became a regular home for the Archbishops, among several others in the diocese and possibly their most valuable possession. The Archbishop travelled with a large retinue according to a timetable.
Archbishop Thomas Becket was a regular visitor there before his exile, and martyrdom in 1170. Becket's Well lies in the grounds of Castle House, 150 yards east of the Palace site.
Edward III spent Christmas there in 1348, during a sede vacante, when it was controlled by the crown.
Palace of Archbishop Warham
It appears from sporadic records that by the time of the accession of Henry VIII, Warham had begun the remodelling and extension of the medieval house. In 1514, Archbishop Warham frustrated by the City Fathers at Canterbury to allow him to build a new palace there, commenced work in Otford. According to his friend Erasmus, "he left nothing of the first work, but only the walls of a hall and of a chapel." He added the North, East and West Ranges around a great courtyard. The enlarged Palace predated that of Cardinal Wolsey at Hampton Court and was little larger in its extent. Visitors to the Palace included Erasmus (a good friend of William Warham), and Hans Holbein the Younger.
Warham received Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio here in July 1518, who was en route to London to confer the title cardinal a latere upon Wolsey. In May 1520, King Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon journeyed up the Darent Valley from Greenwich Palace with an enormous retinue and stayed overnight en route to the Field of the Cloth of Gold.
A survey (c. 1537) recorded that over the bridge is the forebay or forefront of the Galerye well edified and bilded of free stone with large oute caste of baywondows after an uniforme plan by all the Northe Part of the said mote, verye pleasunte to the prospects and view of the said sighte. The hall was invironed aboute with Galeries and Towers and Turrette of Stone and the Chappell embatiled and parte covered with leade.