The Beginnings of Lambeth Palace

Summary

Introduction

It is well-known that just over eight hundred years ago the archbishop of Canterbury became the owner of the manor of Lambeth, and that the principal documents relating to the acquisition of this manor from Rochester in 1197 still survive. What is less well-known is the complicated sequence of events, in the last decade of the twelfth century, that led eventually to the building of a large new London residence for Archbishop Stephen Langton. It is also surprising that the medieval topography of the Lambeth area, which lies directly opposite Westminster on the east side of the Thames, has been so little studied. An investigation of this topography is essential if the various buildings mentioned in the late twelfth-century documents are to be located and understood.

The First Church

The manor of Lambeth is first described in detail in Domesday Book, where unusually we are told that ‘St Mary's is a manor called LANCHEI [i.e. Lambeth]’ which was held by Countess Goda, King Edward's sister. The church (ecclesia) is also specifically mentioned, and it is recorded that there was quite a large population (12 villains, 27 bordars, 2 slaves and 10 ‘burgesses in London’), and that the manor originally answered for 10 hides (in 1066) but now (1086) only for 2½ hides. Dr John Blair has suggested that this was a ‘collegiate minster’, perhaps founded by Godgifu, Edward the Confessors's sister who had died in c.1056. She presumably endowed her church with the whole of the manor of Lambeth, and this large area of land extended southwards as far as Norwood. The site of Godgifu's church of St Mary is almost certainly the same as the site of the later parish church of St Mary, but of the earlier building only a later medieval west tower survives today. Beneath this church, on what was slightly higher ground near the River Thames, the foundations of a major late Anglo-Saxon church may be found one day.

Before the end of the eleventh century (perhaps in 1088) this church was given by KingWilliam Rufus to Rochester Cathedral, at a time when the bishop of Rochester, Gundulf, had continuous good relations with this difficult king. We are also told that at this time a gold and silver shrine, gospel books, rich crucifixes and other ornaments, all formerly belonging to Godgifu, were taken away to Rochester, and as John Blair suggests, this presumably marked the end of the ‘Minster’ church and its canons.