Woodstock Palace

Woodstock Palace was a royal residence in the Oxfordshire town of Woodstock. Henry I built a hunting lodge here and enclosed an eleven-kilometre park where lions and leopards once roamed. His grandson Henry II turned the lodge into a palace and met his mistress Rosamund Clifford there. Henry III often visited for entertainment, even inviting his imprisoned cousin Eleanor in 1237. The palace remained in use through the Middle Ages and Tudor times but was largely destroyed in the Civil War. Later the park became the site of Blenheim Palace, leaving little trace of the medieval buildings. The palace witnessed key events in English history. William the Lion of Scots married Ermengarde de Beaumont here in 1186. Henry III and Llywelyn ap Gruffudd signed the Treaty of Woodstock in 1247. Edward III’s children were born here, including the Black Prince in 1330 and Thomas of Woodstock in 1355. Elizabeth I was confined at Woodstock from 1554 to 1555 under Henry Bedingfeld’s watch. The gatehouse still bears her scratched inscription: “Much suspected by me, nothing proved can be.” Visitors today find a quiet Oxfordshire town where the palace once stood. The gatehouse survives with its arched oak ceiling painted blue and gilded. A chapel dedicated to St Edward once stood above the Queen’s Chamber, its crenellated walls marking the site. The park’s high walls and pleasure gardens recall Henry III’s enclosed herber with its hundred pear trees. Nearby, traces of the old hunting lodge remind visitors of Henry I’s first royal retreat.