Palace of Whitehall

The Palace of Whitehall – also spelled White Hall – at Westminster was the main residence of the English monarchs from 1530 until 1698, when most of its structures, with the notable exception of Inigo Jones's Banqueting House of 1622, were destroyed by fire. Henry VIII moved the royal residence to Whitehall after the old royal apartments at the nearby Palace of Westminster were themselves destroyed by fire. Although the Whitehall palace has not survived, the area where it was located is still called Whitehall and has remained a centre of the British government.

Whitehall was at one time the largest palace in Europe, with more than 1,500 rooms, before itself being overtaken by the expanding Palace of Versailles, which was to reach 2,400 rooms. At its most expansive, the palace extended over much of the area bordered by Northumberland Avenue in the north; to Downing Street and nearly to Derby Gate in the south; and from roughly the elevations of the current buildings facing Horse Guards Road in the west, to the then banks of the River Thames in the east (the construction of Victoria Embankment has since reclaimed more land from the Thames)—a total of about 23 acres (9.3 ha). It was about 710 yards (650 m) from Westminster Abbey.

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

Palace of Whitehall ranks #66 of 7,738 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #10 of the 329 mapped in England. Founded 1530, it is older than 43% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 718 atlas entries founded in the 16th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 45,640 times in the last 60 days, more than 99% of the atlas. 25 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is London, 1 km away. See how England compares in the castle statistics.

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Read the full history on Wikipedia ↗