Qualla: Woking Palace

Woking Palace: Introduction

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Murgatroyd49, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1466, Lady Margaret Beaufort and her third husband Sir Henry Stafford received the royal manor of Woking by royal grant. Margaret was thirteen years a widow already by her first marriage - she had given birth to her only child, the future Henry VII, at the age of thirteen, three months after that first husband's death from plague. She was an unlikely kingmaker who would, through patience and patronage, install the Tudor dynasty on the English throne. The palace she received at Woking would become, in time, a favourite haunt of her grandson Henry VIII, who built two new bowling alleys and a wharf there and kept it in regular repair.

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Image: Murgatroyd49 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Woking Palace: A House on the River Wey

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit After Meynnart Wewyck / Rowland Lockey, Public domain. The first mention of a house on the site dates from 1272. By the fifteenth century the manor of Woking was held in turn by various crown nominees until, in 1466, the royal grant passed it to Margaret Beaufort and Henry Stafford. Stafford was her third husband of four. He was kill...

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Image: After Meynnart Wewyck / Rowland Lockey | Public domain

Woking Palace: Conversion to a Palace

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit SuzanneKn at English Wikipedia, Public domain. In 1503 Henry VII converted the manor house into a palace. Henry VIII visited often and approved a programme of regular alterations and upkeep: new windows, retiled fireplaces, replastered walls, new bridge planks, replacement glass. He commissioned a wharf on the River Wey to br...

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Image: SuzanneKn at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Woking Palace: A Rumour of Murder

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Warofdreams, CC BY-SA 3.0. James VI and I came to Woking in March 1606. He was in the habit of visiting in the spring. While he was there, a false rumour reached London that he had been assassinated by Catholic conspirators armed with poisoned knives or pistol shot - the kind of plot, fresh after the Gunpo...

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Image: Warofdreams | CC BY-SA 3.0

Woking Palace: Zouch the Fool

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mertbiol, CC0. Sir Edward Zouch, the Knight Marshal, was made steward of Woking by James in May 1609. He arranged with the surveyor of the royal works for cleaning the moat and building a private bridge that would shield the king's garden from the public road. James found his company useful in ...

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Image: Mertbiol | CC0

Woking Palace: Excellent Survival

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ron Strutt, CC BY-SA 2.0. What remains today is described by archaeologists as an "excellent survival" among pre-sixteenth-century royal sites - excellent because so little above ground means almost everything still below ground is intact. The medieval barrel vault has been re-roofed by Woking Borough Cou...

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Image: Ron Strutt | CC BY-SA 2.0