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Lambeth Palace: London's Newest Tourist Stop

Episcopal News Service. April 13, 2000 [2000-081]

(ENS) Lambeth Palace, the archbishop of Canterbury's London home since 1197, has played a key, and sometimes colorful, role in British history, yet it never has been opened to the public. Until now.

Since April 1, the historic building's crypt, great hall, guard room, state dining room, state drawing room and chapel, as well as selected books and manuscripts from the library and portraits of some of the 103 men who have served as archbishop have been on display as part of a one-hour tour. Administrative offices and living quarters in the palace, including the residence of Archbishop George Carey and his wife, Eileen, are not on the tour.

The palace tours will be offered five days a week through November 4, after which officials will decide whether to open it again next year. The tours are part of the London String of Pearls Millennium Festival, which features 65 historic places along the River Thames, some of them never before opened to the public. Also part of the festival are activities and exhibits describing the institutions, their roles and their links to the communities around them.

While private visits to the palace have been arranged occasionally through the years, it has never before been opened on the scale anticipated by church officials for this year. They estimate that up to 80,000 people will come. So far, more than 45,000 tickets have been sold. Support for the tours, which are being conducted by a staff of nearly 100 volunteers, has come from several firms and funds in England.

Those who pay the ticket price (about $9.50) begin their one-hour visits with an 11-minute video introduced by Carey, who says he hopes that they will experience the very real sense of history of the place as they go through it.

The video recalls the arrival of the first archbishop of Canterbury, St. Augustine, in Britain in 597 and the eventual establishment of later archbishops as the monarch's principal ministers. Lambeth Palace, across the Thames from the king's palace at Westminster, became the London base for Canterbury clerics.

Tales from the crypt

The oldest surviving parts of Lambeth Palace, portions of the walls of the crypt, date back to 1199 and are the first stop on the tour, followed by a walk through the Great Hall, added to the palace in 1660.

Visitors then view the palace library.

When Peter the Great of Russia came to see it in 1698, he said that nothing in England had astonished him as much as this library. He had never thought that there were so many books in all the world. Founded in 1610, it now contains more than 4,000 manuscripts, of which more than 600 are medieval. There are about 200,000 printed books, including a Gutenberg Bible, and about 30,000 books dating from the early days of printing in England to 1700.

A special display includes former Prime Minister William Gladstone's diaries, medical reports detailing the madness of King George III and a chalice and candlesticks belonging to Archbishop William Laud.

The Guard Room, next on the tour, was probably built in the 14th century and features one of the finest surviving medieval roofs in London. The room itself is historic: It is said to have been where Sir Thomas More refused to swear the Oath of Supremacy to King Henry VIII and later it served as the venue for the first Lambeth Conference in 1867.

Groups then see the State Dining Room and State Drawing Room, used regularly by the Careys to entertain visiting dignitaries. Displayed along the way are several paintings from the palace collection, including portraits by Van Dyck and Hogarth.

The last room on the tour is the chapel, originally built in 1220 and still used every day by the archbishop and his household. A small room above it has been restored to commemorate Thomas Cranmer's role in writing the Book of Common Prayer.

The tour ends with an exhibition set up to illustrate the roles of the archbishop of Canterbury today -- as leader of the Diocese of Canterbury, the primate of All England and leader of the Anglican Communion. It also shows Carey's work as an ecumenical and interfaith leader.

And, of course, there is a shop ready with tasteful souvenirs of one's hour in Lambeth Palace.

Tour tickets must be purchased ahead of time for a specific time and day. Tours begin every 15 minutes from 10 am to 4:30 pm, Tuesday through Saturday. More information is available at www.stringofpearls.org.uk

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