HENRY THE HYGIENIC

By the time he built his last palace King Henry

was aware of the need for better sanitation and

Nonsuch was planned to be the most hygienic

of the royal residences.

Since 1533 there had been a scourer of drains

and sinks whose job it was to visit all the

palaces in turn and the King's apothecary was

supplying portable urinals made of clay at 3d each.

There was a courtier with the title of groom of the

stool whose task it was to wipe the royal bottom

and William Grene, the coffer-maker, made 'a close

stool for the use of the King's Majesty' at a cost

of £6-8s-1 1/2d. Grene's accounts mention a

bowl and cistern, implying that the stool was in

fact a water closet of some sort, possibly the

first of its kind in the world.

On the other hand it is claimed that John

Harrington,the godson of Henry's daughter,

Elizabeth I, really did invent a flushing toilet for

his godmother in 1597. He was laughed to

scorn for his efforts, however, and the idea had

to wait until 1775 for the idea to be reinvented.

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The new palace was soon famous throughout Europe for its magnificence and was

visited by kings and queens, noblemen and ambassadors.

With the addition of Banstead Downs to the south of Nonsuch Henry had 40 square

miles of countryside suitable for hunting. He hunted not just for deer but for foxes,

badgers, pheasants, partridges, coney (rabbits) and 'all kinds of vermin'.

Nonsuch Palace had two parks - the Little Park adjacent to the palace which included

6 acres of gardens and the Great Park with more than 900 acres. The Great Park was

stocked with deer for the hunt. It is now covered by the London suburb of Worcester

Park, named after the Earl who was appointed keeper there in 1606.

Today, all that remains of Nonsuch are contemporary drawings, fragments of carved

stone and pottery, and two obelisks recording details of the palace in the publicly-owned

Nonsuch Park, some 13 miles from the centre of London. Where Henry VIII and his

courtiers, and Queen Elizabeth I and her court, once hunted deer families now stroll in

the sunshine and dog owners exercise their charges. The 80ft towers covered with

carved slate and stucco and topped with 'heraldic beasts and gilded weather vanes' are

no more.

The palace fell into decay in the second half of the seventeenth century and during the

Great Plague of 1665 the diarist Samuel Pepys , then Surveyor General of the Victualling

Office, was billeted there with other civil servants from the Exchequer in London. He was

struck by the decline in the fabric of the building. 'A fine place it hath heretofore been',he

wrote sadly, 'and a fine prospect about the house.' After recording some of the surviving

splendours, he described walking 'in the ruined garden.'

Despite the neglect, Nonsuch Palace might well have survived to become in time the

jewel in the crown of the National Trust or English Heritage but for Barbara Villiers,

Countess of Castlemaine. After many years as the mistress of Charles II, she was

pensioned off and loaded with further titles, including Baroness of Nonsuch, and given

he ownership of Nonsuch Palace.

The countess was a notorious gambler and, despite several pensions and various lump

sums she extracted from Charles, she had trouble paying her gambling debts. It is said

that she lost £20,000 and a good deal of her jewellery in one night's gambling. She solved

some of her cash flow problems by having Nonsuch palace pulled down and the materials

and rubble sold off to be incorporated in other great houses and buildings, many of them in

nearby Epsom. New mansions and houses in Epsom were 'ornamented with curiosities', it is recorded.

from Nonsuch Palace

The lost palace would have become simply a local myth but for John Dent, one time

Borough Librarian of Epsom and Ewell. Using evidence found from trenches dug

preparatory to building a road just before the Second World War and post war aerial

photographs, he set about organising an excavation which in 1959 uncovered the

foundations of Nonsuch Palace and its separate Banqueting Hall.

Nonsuch is now gone, but thanks to John Dent, not forgotten.

Many of the finds of pottery, carved materials and other artefacts from the 1959 dig

were presented to the London Museum and others are in the museum at Bourne Hall library,

Ewell, where there is ample parking available. The nearest railway station is West Ewell.

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