Duke Humphrey's Library at Bella Court

The Great hall was built in the 1400's

The Domesday Book records the manor of Greenwich as held by the Bishop Odo of Bayeux; his lands were seized by the crown in 1082. A royal palace, or hunting lodge, has existed here since before 1300, when Edward III is known to have made offerings at the chapel of the Virgin Mary. Subsequent monarchs were regular visitors, with Henry IV making his will here, and Henry V granting the manor (for life) to Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter, who died at Greenwich in 1417.

The palace was created by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the regent to Henry VI in 1447; enclosing the park and erecting a tower on the spot of the Royal Observatory. It was renamed the Palace of Placentia or Pleasaunce by Henry VI's consort Margaret of Anjou after Humphrey's death. The palace was completed and further enlarged by Edward IV, and in 1466 it was granted to his Queen, Elizabeth.


The Roof of the Tudor Great Hall in nearby Eltham

The nearby moated Palace of Eltham was used by the royal family as a palace around the same time as Greenwich and so provides an example of what the Tudor palace might have looked like before being swept away by Charles II. Like Greenwich, Eltham Palace is set in beautiful parkland with expansive views over London. The Great Hall was built for Edward IV in the 1470s as a dining hall for the court. The hall measures an impressive 100 feet in length. Like Greenwich, Eltham was neglected durring the civil war.


The Library's Glass Dome

One tends to think of the Renaissance as the beginning of modern Art and Science, but it was not until the 17th century that the new concepts of mathematics and the physical sciences began to emerge, and indeed that was also the beginning of the era of classical music. For example, it was not until Duke Humphrey, donated part of his collection of manuscripts and classical texts that he kept at Greenwich in the middle 1400s that Oxford students had books to read!


Duke Humphrey's collection establishes the foundation for a University Library

Such as large gift called for a greater space to house them, and work began to construct the Divinity School. Up until the 17th century Oxford University was not a school with deep pockets in terms of money; the Reformation and the creation of the Church of England split the country in half religiously, politically, and with these drastic changes, the university suffered both in its prestige and actual educational capacity. Anything papal was in the midst of being destroyed, and the Duke Humfrey's library, having such early promise, by 1450 was nearly empty. The library had to resort to various means for funds, such as the selling of its property. Still, these sorts of measures could hardly have raised enough revenue to maintain let alone develop their library collections.


Greenwich Library at Avery Hill

Today, the Bodleian Library is the main research library of the University of Oxford. It is also a copyright deposit library and its collections are used by scholars from around the world. The buildings within the central site include Duke Humfrey's Library above the Divinity School, the Old Schools Quadrangle with its Great Gate and Tower, the Radcliffe Camera, Britain's first circular library, and the Clarendon Building.


Manuscripts donated by Duke Humphrey from his collection at Greenwich