Friends of Woking Palace

Home

The Friends of Woking Palace is a Registered Charity whose Objects are:

 

The preservation and protection, upkeep and maintenance of Woking Palace, and the advancement of education of the public in the history of the Palace site.

 

Woking Palace Today

 

Woking Palace is situated on the alluvial flood plain of the original un-canalised course of the River Wey opposite Broadmead and about 1.5 km downstream from the parish church of St Peter’s, Old Woking, just south of the east end of Carters Lane. The site has been designated as a Scheduled Ancient Monument under Section 1 of the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 as amended by the National Heritage Act 1983.

 

The moated site can be conveniently divided into four parts namely:

·            north east quadrant

·            barrel vault and associated structures in the south east

·            the King’s Garden on the south west

·            the Copse to the north west, once the orchard.

 

The scheduling of a monument means that permission is required for works affecting that monument. This necessitates an application to English Heritage for Scheduled Monument Consent. It follows, therefore, that no digging, planting or similar work may be carried out on the site without such Consent. No burning may be carried out within the Copse although burning is allowed outside the Copse provided that this is undertaken on metal and the resultant ash removed off the site

 

There are three moat arms, one partly filled in, with the River Wey as the fourth element of the water features enclosing the site.

 

The few remaining structures on the site above ground are broadly in the south east quadrant and consist of a barrel vault and some adjoining Tudor brick walls. Woking Borough Council as custodians has found it necessary to erect a protective roof over the barrel vault, install a locked door and carry out protective repairs to the brick structure.

 

The vault is the one remaining part we have of the original Palace, albeit missing its second storey, and it is intended to present the building in as informative manner as possible. Although the building retains its original outside sarsen stone on the two sides, that on the front and possibly the rear appears to have been removed. A small archaeological investigation is proposed to investigate this anomaly.

 

One of the items forming part of our HLF grant (see News) is the provision of electricity in the vault and in addition, it is hoped to remove the present stack of bricks. This will enable the building to be presented in its best possible light. Also at present we just have a plan of the vault, it is proposed to draw up accurate archaeological elevations with the help of photographs so there is a proper documentary record of the structure.

 

The King’s Garden was originally a formal kitchen garden but is now a rough meadow.

 

The Copse contains two large linear fish ponds and a smaller round pond.

 

Please visit Aerial Photographs to see aerial photographs of the site.

 

Go to Reconstruction for an artist's impression of how the Palace might have looked in Tudor times

To contact us:email: askus at woking-palace.org

Registered Charity No.1100852

Copyright © 2008 Friends of Woking Palace
Last modified: 13th April 2008

editor at woking-palace.org

(Please note all clickable addresses have been disabled to thwart the attention of Search engines and resultant spam. Please replace " at " by "@")

CLICK FOR DATE OF GREAT OAK DOOR

CLICK FOR WARNING RE BEES ON SITE

Recent research has established the occupants of Woking house (eventually Woking Palace) in the early 15th century click Hollands or Beaufort for latest additions to this website