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Little Downham Bishops Palace
Also known as, or recorded in historical
documents as; Tower Farmhouse
In the civil parish of Downham.
In the historic county of Cambridgeshire (Modern Authority of Cambridgeshire, 1974 county of Cambridgeshire).
C15 palace of Bishop of Ely. Gatehouse survives as farm outbuilding. Built for Bishop Alcock (1486-1500). Red brick with deeper red brick diaper patterning; plinth coursed in English bond with chamfered limestone band, limestone dressings to quoins and openings. Reroofed with corrugated iron. Possibly of several original storeys, height reduced to two storeys with walls and door jambs in rear elevation of rear wing demolished. South elevation: Pedestrian entrance to left of centre through moulded four-centred arch with panelled overmantel and superimposed crocketed ogee arch enclosing a cock, the rebus of Bishop Alcock. Windows with round-headed- lights, drip moulds and chamfered mullions, two single-light ground floor windows and one three-light window to right hand of entrance; one large five-light window reduced in height at first floor and two single-light windows to right hand. Interior: The original plan was of an entrance hall with guardroom and doorway to staircase from the cross passage with an inner room to the right hand. The end room was possibly tunnel vaulted and the hall has springings for two bays of fan vaulting. The room divisions are repeated at first floor. The Lease of 1746 'with covenant to repair tower said to have been gatehouse... into a good farmhouse'. Bishopsic of Ely Lease Book. Kitchen wing survives as barn, fragments also incorporated into later buildings.
This site has been described as a;
Palace.
The confidence
that this site is a medieval fortification or palace is Certain.
Masonry ruins/remnants remains.
This site is a
Grade 2* listed
building protected by law*. (Images
of England number 49473, 49474)
The Ordnance Survey Map Grid Reference is TL51928420
PastScape number;
375286
Books
- Pugh, R.B. (ed), 2002, VCH Cambridge and the Isle of Ely Vol4 p92 http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=21898
Thompson, M.W., 1998, Medieval bishops' houses in England and Wales (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing) p176
Patterson, W., 1974, The Village and Church
Pevsner, N., 1970, The Buildings of England: Cambridgeshire (London, Penguin) p330
Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)
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*The listed building
may not be the actual medieval building, but a building on the site
of, or incorporating fragments of, the described site.
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