Image: Ewelme manor house, site of Henry VIII residence (photo C.A. Stanford)
Acquired: 1509 (by inheritance)
The former ducal seat for Suffolk, built 1430s, it had fallen into Crown hands in the early sixteenth century with the eclipse of the de la Pole family. By 1518, Henry VIII had converted it into a palace with a king’s side and a queen’s side, and he and Catherine of Aragon stayed there during an Oxfordshire progress. From 1525–1535 it was leased to Charles Brandon, the new duke of Suffolk, but Henry required it back with a forced exchange of properties.
Minor repairs to Ewelme appear in the records of the king’s works, but by Elizabeth’s reign, the house was in very poor repair. Very little remains today except some brick wall fragments incorporated into the existing manor house.