Today is April 22, and King Henry VIII began his reign exactly 517 years ago. Isn’t it amazing how, five centuries later, most of us can immediately conjure an image of the man?

He was infamous for a lot of things – gluttony, vanity, getting out of marriages, and that incredible fashion sense with the frills and the preposterous wide stance – but one of his contributions is more under the radar, and it’s all about architecture.

Meander along with me while I tell you about an incredible experience I had in London, visiting Eltham Palace and Gardens.

Much of Eltham isn’t all that old, but some of Eltham is VERY old indeed, and the melding of the oldest with the not-so-old provides a lesson in how to beautifully incorporate historic structures into new designs, even today.

Let’s start with the old.

The original manor house on the Eltham property was first recorded in the Domesday Book in 1086, owned by Odo, the Bishop of Bayeux. It underwent various phases of architectural evolution over the centuries, with a new mansion built around the turn of the 14th century. That mansion, complete with a moat, was gifted to Prince Edward in 1305 by Anthony Bek, the Bishop of Durham.

From that point forward, it became an important royal residence. Among other upgrades, a “Great Hall” was added to the palace in the 1470’s by Edward IV. This massive room features some of the most ornate timber trusses I have ever seen (but more on the Great Hall in a bit).

Later on, Eltham had its most famous occupant. Young Henry VIII grew up in the palace, raised in the “Royal Nursery” with his sisters. He continued living primarily at Eltham after he became king, using it as his main residence from 1509 through the 1530’s. Eventually, perhaps becoming tired of Eltham, he spent more time at the Greenwich and Hampton Court Palaces.

Breaking away from Eltham for a moment, let’s bring Hampton Court into the story.

Hampton Court Palace (another must-see if you ever find yourself in London) is more well-known as a King Henry VIII landmark than is Eltham. The history of how Henry acquired Hampton Court from his Lord Chancellor Cardinal Thomas Wolesley, who parted with it very reluctantly, is quite interesting.

Wolesley had leased it as a deteriorating property and renovated it at great expense, primarily to turn it into a home that would impress the rich and famous. This backfired epically; he failed to secure an annulment for Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon, so he fell very much out of favor with the king. To appease the king and save his own life, he ended up gifting Hampton Court Palace to Henry, who in turn expanded the palace even more than Wolesley had, into one befitting of a king rather than a mere Lord Chancellor.

Just like Eltham, Hampton Court Palace continued to evolve long after Henry VIII’s residency.

Sir Christopher Wren, sometimes referred to as “Britain’s Greatest Architect”, famously had a massive project on his hands when he took on the “re-remodeling” of Hampton Court Palace in the 1600’s after the English Civil War.

It was a situation that many of us, as designers, have experienced – new owners King William III and Queen Mary II adored the location, but the house itself? A total gut job. The Tudor style was out, and it was time for a royal makeover.

Wren’s work at Hampton Court deserves a deep dive on its own, but the reason I bring it up at this point in the Eltham story is that Queen Mary II’s 17th-century version of a Pinterest mood board must have been full of that “fashionable new Baroque style”. Out with the Tudor (i.e., that 1990’s brown kitchen with laminate counters) and in with the Baroque (i.e., waterfall islands and induction cooktops).

A substantial amount of the palace's existing architecture was demolished to make way for the new clients. I imagine that Wren, as the architect, wasn’t very happy about this, but what can you do when your client is the monarch, other than make the best out of a less-than-ideal situation and survive the project?

Some of the Tudor structure was just covered over rather than being removed, and key elements were mostly untouched, such as Hampton Court Palace’s own Great Hall. However, the particular feature I wanted to mention here is that part of the reworking of the plan was to feature an inner courtyard.

We’ll get back to this Fountain Court, a peaceful lawn and garden surrounded by arched colonnades, in a moment. It comes back into the story of Eltham, I promise.

Once King Henry went from living at Eltham Palace to Hampton Court Palace, the bloom was officially off the Eltham rose. The property gradually fell into a state of disrepair. From the mid-1600’s to the mid-1800’s, the property was leased to a farming family, and the still-standing Great Hall was repurposed as an agricultural building.

Can you imagine these timber trusses standing high above the pigs and goats for nearly two centuries, all dusty with chaff and slowly deteriorating?

The areas around the property were gradually being developed, growing ever closer to the nearly abandoned property. The 1900’s saw Eltham Palace a shadow of its former self, an eyesore. A ruin.

But then, an amazing thing happened to bring Eltham Palace back to life in the 1930’s.

Enter the Courtaulds, an eccentric and wealthy couple who saw Eltham as an opportunity, not a ruin. Why not retain the Great Hall, but attach a new modern home to it, a place for entertaining friends in London between their world travels?

The architects hired, John Seely and Paul Paget, faced quite a design challenge. In many ways, they were in the same position as Sir Christopher Wren was when he undertook the architectural reinvention of Hampton Court Palace. This time, though, the new style wasn’t “that fashionable new Baroque”.

It was Art Deco.

This was such a drastic departure from the existing Medieval Great Hall, livestock and all. But Stephen and Virginia Courtauld had a vision of sorts, a big dream of mashing up a modern style with something ancient. And the young architects were taking on the largest project they’d ever gotten.

How to pull it together? Their new house is the “addition”, and one of its two angled wings terminates directly into the end of the Great Hall (behind the tree).

The Great Hall is taller than the house, and indeed it dominates the front elevation. There’s no disguising what was old from what is new(er). And, to make the new structure taller than the Great Hall would have looked absolutely ridiculous.

Fellow designer, you may be reading this and thinking about how tricky the connection between buildings of disparate architectural eras can be, both aesthetically and logistically. Seely and Paget did what they could to conceal the junction between the ancient and contemporary. They very elegantly disguised the building’s transition on the front elevation by adding a projecting spiral staircase with a curved stone cap, taller than the connection point of the Great Hall corner. This transitional element effectively works to bridge the styles.

The Courtaulds wanted all the modern conveniences inside the house – a central vacuum, a domed modern skylight, an electric refrigerator, recessed lighting, and loudspeakers to play their records throughout the first floor – but still wanted the exterior to at least complement the Great Hall.

What inspired the style of the exterior of their new home? Wren’s renovations to Hampton Court Palace, of course!

The new entrance colonnade of Eltham Palace was inspired by the arches around the Fountain Court at Hampton. In fact, the exterior of Eltham was influenced by much of Wren’s late 1600’s reworking of Hampton Court, so much so that the architectural style of the new Eltham is called “Wrenaissance”.

If you’ve ever been part of designing a major renovation or addition to a historic structure, you’re aware that these types of projects bring out everyone’s architectural hot take. You will get positive and negative feedback. The general response to Eltham’s transformation was mixed, to say the least.

In 1933, Seely and Paget had obtained approval of the general design principle they had in mind from Sir Charles Peers, without having shown him any plans. He was the president of the Society of Antiquaries and the chief inspector of ancient monuments with the Office of Works, and he signed off on the idea. Later, when the architects showed the plans to the Ancient Monuments Board, the head secretary was horrified. Approval was given once Peers was hired as an architectural consultant, to ensure that the existing structures weren’t altered any more than necessary and were restored appropriately.

Some of the critics had this to say once work was completed:

The locals, as they often do, complained that cleaning up the site and adding a new house destroyed their view of what was formerly a naturally decaying ruin. Now they had a big 1930’s McMansion to stare at.

I think of Eltham Palace as the architectural equivalent of ham and pineapple pizza. You wouldn’t think it’s a good combination, a Medieval Great Hall mixed with an Art Deco masterpiece. Many people would agree with you. But for some, that strange mix just works somehow.

It’s hard to explain until you experience it for yourself.

Just like ham and pineapple pizza.