Winchester House

Located directly to the west of St. Saviour (Southwark) on the southern bank of the Thames, Winchester House, also known as Winchester Palace, was the London residence for the Bishops of Winchester from the twelfth century until 1626 (Sugden 567). John Stow notes that Winchester House was originally built by William Giffard around the year 1107 on a plot of land belonging to the Prior of Bermondsey (Stow 1598, sig. Y7r). The palace is labelled on the Agas map, Hogenberg and Braun’s 1572 map (Londinum Feracissimi Angliæ Regni Metropolis), and Visscher’s 1616 map (Londinum Florentissima Britanniæ Urbs; Toto Orbe Celeberriumum Emporiumque).
In 1663, Winchester House was dismantled and broken into tenements (Sugden 567). While the surviving parts of the original building were largely destroyed by a fire in the nineteenth century, sections of the building’s Great Hall still remain. For more information about the modern-day site of Winchester House, see English Heritage’s page on this location.

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