Old Somerset house, London, England
Illustration from Cassell's Century Edition History of England, pub circa 1901 by W H Boot (1848 – 1918) Info from wiki: In the sixteenth century, the Strand, the north bank of the Thames between the City of London and the Palace of Westminster was a favoured site for the mansions of bishops and aristocrats, who could commute from their own landing stages up-river to the court or down-river to the City and beyond.[5] In 1539 Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford (), obtained a grant of land at "Chester Place, outside Temple Bar, London" from his brother-in-law King Henry VIII. When his nephew the boy-king Edward VI came to the throne in 1547, Seymour became Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector. In about 1549 he pulled down an old Inn of Chancery and other houses which stood on the site and began to build himself a palatial residence, making liberal use of other nearby buildings including some of the chantry chapels and cloisters at St. Paul's Cathedral, which were demolished partly at his behest as part of the ongoing Dissolution of the Monasteries. It was a two-story house built around a quadrangle with a gateway rising to three stories and was one of the earliest examples of Renaissance architecture in England. It is not known who designed the building.
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Photo credit: © Historical Images Archive / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 16th, 1775, architecture, began, built, century, demolished, duke, early, edward, england, engraving, house, illustration, image, london, lord, picture, protector, renaissance, seymour, somerset
