Lambeth Palace - "Lollards' Tower, ca.1883

From: Henry Dixon & Son

RA Collection: Art

"It would be impossible to give within the limits of these notes any general account of Lambeth Palace, the history and associations of which have, fortunately, been recently made the subject of careful study, in a work which has already taken its place as the recognised authority for all that relates to the Palace. It will therefore be sufficient, for the most part, merely to quote from Mr Cave-Brown's Lambeth Palace and its Associations, passages referring to the subjects of these photographs.

THE LOLLARDS' TOWER; or more properly, THE WATER TOWER.

This is the stone tower seen on the right of the photograph; that is to the left, of brick, being known, traditionally, as "Cranmer's Tower." As we now see it, the Lollards' Tower was, in the main built by Archbishop Chicheley, and completed in the year 1435, though portions of it are of a much earlier date. Mr Cave-Brown has carefully inquired into the origin of the popular name which would claim the Tower as a Lollards' prison, and has arrived at the conclusion that the tradition is baseless. A "Lollards' Tower" undoubtedly existed, but it was at St. Paul's. Stow speaks of it, but mentions no other. "No antiquarian writer of the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries - not Leland or Speed or Spelman, or even Aubrey - no historian of the period speaks of any "Lollards' Tower at Lambeth." It was not known by this name in the time of the Commonwealth. Mr Cave-Brown accounts for the tradition by suggesting that when the actual Lollards' Tower at St. Paul's was destroyed in the Great Fire, the name transferred to Lambeth. At the top of the Tower is a small room, about 13ft by 12, and 8 high; the walls covered with thick oak, in which there are large iron rings. This room was undoubtedly used as a prison. There still remains names and sentences carved in the oak by the occupants of this room. The character and style of the inscriptions appear, according to Mr Cave-Brown, to belong rather to the seventeenth than to the fifteenth century, and, so far, to tell against the popular name of the Tower."

The above description, by Alfred Marks, has been taken from the letterpress which accompanies the photographs.