Bygone Middlesex - 1899 Author:William Andrews Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: jfulbam palace anfc Cburcb. By C. H. Bellamy, F.R.G.S. 'TPHE Bishopric of London has always been - fortunate in its possession of residences for the occupa... more »nts of the See. Bishop Porteus about 1808 wrote a little pamphlet,—now become so rare that only the one copy treasured in the British Museum appears to be in existence,— entitled, " A Brief Accompt of Three Favourite Country Residences," the residences being those at Hunton, Fulham and Tundridge. Of these the Manor of Fulham has belonged to the See for more than a thousand years, ever since Bishop Tyrhtel of Hereford gave the property to the great and sainted Saxon Bishop Erken- wald, about the year 691. But for hundreds of years it was only the country residence of the bishops, Fulham even in the last century being, as a writer in 1769 says, "a village four miles from London, seated on the side of the Thames;" and it was generally known as the " Bishop's Manor House." The earliest palace of the bishops of London was in the precincts of St Paul's Cathedral, which it closely adjoined on the north-west. Here, in the very heart of London, the bishop had a stately mansion, with gardens extending eastward as far as the great cloister of the cathedral, better known as Pardon Church Yard; to Paternoster Row on the north ; and to Ave Maria Lane on the west. In the present name of London House Yard we find a connection with the ancient site. That in these gardens there grew fruit trees, is evidenced by the note made by one writer, that in 1329 a fruiterer who was gathering nuts fell from one of the trees and was killed. This old palace was the scene of many interesting occurrences. Here Bishop Fitzjames entertained Henry VIII. at a magnificent banquet; the massive gold chains worn by the nobles calling forth from the Venetian...« less