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Friends of Woking Palace |
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A Walk round the Palace site part one |
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Item numbers refer to the Plan on pages 14/15 of the Guide available from Woking Library, the Lightbox and Surrey History Centre and on Open Days from the site, price £2.50.
The moat originally entirely surrounded the Palace and included a middle arm. However, today the visitor will find the western arm wholly filled up with only the top part of the middle arm remaining. As you approach the site along the path from the small car park, note the Winding Hole at the top of the eastern arm where it begins its run across the northern side of the site. This was used for turning barges.
Pass through the gate to the site.
Go over the Moat across what would originally have been a bridge but is now an earth causeway.
You will see in the distance the stone built Barrel Vault and the remains of the brick King’s Hall
As you move forward from the moat, the site of the Gatehouse is immediately to your right.
Across to the left where there is now a line of trees and scrub, is where the Queen’s Apartments were, looking over the River Wey to Broadmead, now owned by Surrey Wildlife Trust. In Tudor times there was probably a bridge across the river and only a little imagination is necessary to picture the King and his court jousting on Broadmead in full view of the Queen and her ladies. There are no above ground remains of the apartments. There was a wharf in this area of the river and the artefacts were recovered from the river here.
Proceeding along the rough pathway towards the buildings in front of you, pause about halfway to find the stone remains of the east wall of the Great Hall beneath your feet, the wall originally continued in a roughly north west direction but the site has been extensively robbed of material over the years and very little remains, if anything, of this wall apart from the stone on which you are standing. A line of hawthorn bushes probably represents the end of the Hall.
The site extended further north towards the moat and there were further buildings beyond the hawthorn line.
Continuing along the pathway effectively across the width of the Great Hall you reach the west wall. This much more discernable and the line of the wall is visible in summer as a change in the grass colour. If you follow the line of the wall carefully, you will find traces of the foundations towards the end. Returning to the pathway, you can see three courses of stonework forming the south east end of the Hall adjacent to the rogue self seeded Ash. |
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To contact us:email: askus at woking-palace.org |
Registered Charity No.1100852Copyright © 2008 Friends of Woking Palace
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