Clarendon Palace

Clarendon Palace is a medieval ruin 2+1⁄4 miles (3.6 km) east of Salisbury in Wiltshire, England. The palace was a royal residence during the Middle Ages, and was the location of the Assize of Clarendon which developed the Constitutions of Clarendon. It now lies within the grounds of Clarendon Park.

There is evidence that the Romans used Clarendon Forest on a regular basis. A Roman road connecting to Old Sarum Iron Age hillfort passes east–west approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) north of Clarendon Forest. Archaeological finds suggest that the area was relatively densely populated in the Roman period.

Clarendon Forest was probably in use as a royal hunting ground in the late Saxon period. It is also documented that the area was sometimes used as a military gathering-place from 1070 onwards. The name Clarendon is first recorded in 1164, and may derive from an Old English form *Claringa dūn, meaning "hill associated with Clare". A person named Clare is recorded as a witness in a charter dating from the reign of King Eadred.

The Norman kings also visited it, and the park was probably formally defined with deer leaps in the early 12th century by Henry I. Within its boundaries, the park was laid out with lawns, coppices, meadows and wood-pasture. By 1130 a hunting lodge existed within the park.

Both Henry II and Henry III invested heavily in the property and converted it into a royal residence and palace. Considerable building work took place in the early-to-mid 13th century, including the construction of King's Chapel and the Antioch chamber under the supervision of Elias of Dereham, the ecclesiastical administrator who also oversaw the building of Salisbury Cathedral.

In 1164, Henry II framed the Constitutions of Clarendon here, which attempted to restrict ecclesiastical privileges and place limits on Papal authority in England. A memorial erected on the site in 1844 stated:

The spirit awakened within these walls ceased not until it had vindicated the authority of the laws and accomplished the Reformation of the Church of England.

At its height, the palace consisted of several buildings surrounding a central courtyard and contained inside a small wall. The palace was rectangular with dimensions of roughly 240m by 80m totalling over 5 acres (20,000 m2) and included terraced gardens. Margaret Howell writes:

The site of the royal palace at Clarendon ...

Text adapted from “Clarendon Palace” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Clarendon Palace ranks #3,754 of 8,133 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #257 of the 334 mapped in England. Founded 1164, it is older than 81% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 563 atlas entries founded in the 12th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 1,439 times in the last 60 days, more than 58% of the atlas. 5 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Southampton, 30 km away. See how England compares in the castle statistics.

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