There is nowhere else in London quite like Eltham Palace. You arrive across a 15th-century stone bridge over the moat, and what waits on the far side is really two houses in conversation: the remains of a medieval royal palace, where the young Henry VIII grew up and famously met Erasmus in 1499, and a thrillingly modern Art Deco villa grafted onto its flank by Stephen and Virginia Courtauld, who took the ruins on in 1933 and built something entirely of its own moment beside them.
The Great Hall is the survivor of the older palace, raised for Edward IV in the 1470s beneath what is still the third-largest hammerbeam roof in England. A sliding Chinese lacquer screen divides it from the Courtaulds’ house, so you can walk in a few paces from a room Tudor kings dined in to the circular entrance hall the Swedish designer Rolf Engströmer created, where daylight falls from a glazed dome onto blackbean veneer and figurative marquetry. Beyond it lie the Italian Drawing Room and interiors as close to a great 1930s ocean liner as anything you will find on dry land.
The gardens are the other half of the pleasure. Within the old moated enclosure the Courtaulds laid out lawns, borders and half-hidden walkways, and by early summer the flagstone terrace is thick with climbing wisteria and scented roses. English Heritage has cared for the place since 1995 and restored it thoroughly, so it feels loved rather than roped off, and guests walk in from the car park over the bridge much as the Courtaulds’ own visitors once did.
Where the band plays
The Great Hall is the room you want for dancing, and in a sense it was always built for it. It takes around 170 for a dinner and dance, has underfloor heating beneath all that medieval timber and doors opening straight onto the lawns — and, best of all, a minstrels’ gallery that puts a band exactly where musicians have played in this room for centuries. The volume of the space is both forgiving and flattering, so a brass-led soul band fills it without anyone having to push. A dance floor can be brought in if you would rather not dance on the stone.
Ceremony, drinks and the rooms in between
Ceremonies usually happen in the Great Hall, which seats up to 200, or in the Art Deco entrance hall beneath the dome for something more intimate. Afterwards the party spills through the French doors to the terrace and the moated gardens, where as many as 300 can stand about with a glass of something cold — which is, unsurprisingly, the moment your photographer has been waiting for. The Italian Drawing Room makes an elegant home for a smaller dinner, and because the Art Deco rooms interconnect, drinks in one and dinner in another is an easy piece of choreography.
How the evening runs
Evening guests tend to arrive from around 8pm and the first dance sets the night going, with the bar running until 11.30pm and the music drawing to a close so that everyone is away by midnight. That shape suits a live band nicely: two proper sets with a break between them, then a short DJ tail rather than a long one. Timings at a heritage site are agreed case by case, so confirm yours when you book — along with load-in, which comes from the car park and over the moat bridge and is worth allowing extra time for.
Bands available in London and perfectly at home in a venue like this.
More live music in London.
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- London Wedding DJs
- London Corporate Entertainment
Worth reading before you book: Sound Limiters Explained. More questions answered on our England & Wales FAQs.