Turning a town into a palace

The townscape of Royston in Hertfordshire preserves the vestiges of one of Britain’s most surprising royal palaces. Simon Thurley describes the form and history of this remarkable building

- Simon Thurley

In the autumn of 1604, only just over a year into his reign, James I decided to found one of the most unlikely and unusual royal residences in the long history of the monarchy. This was a building that posterity has sometimes called Royston Palace, but it looked nothing like a palace of popular imagination; indeed, it was little more than a cluster of houses in the middle of a Hertfordshire market town. This unpalatial palace became one of the King’s most favoured residences, the scene of many important events in his reign.

Although, during the Commonwealth, the royal residence was abolished and sold, the streets of Royston still contain many of the former royal buildings, enough, in fact, to reconstruct this most unusual creation.

As James I travelled south from Scotland after his accession, he eventually arrived at Royston, set on the Great North Road some 60 miles from his new capital. In the Middle Ages, the town was half in Cambridgeshire and half in Hertfordshire, clustered round a marketplace and a modest, but rich, priory.

The priory had been dissolved in 1536, the priory church transformed into the parish church and its residential buildings converted into a house by Robert Chester, one of Henry VIII’s Gentlemen Ushers. It was in this large courtyard house that the new King stayed in April 1604 with his boisterous retinue.

The King’s progress from Edinburgh had started briskly, but had become bogged down as James began to revel in the enthusiasm and excess of his welcome. Before he had even reached Newcastle, people realised his passion was hunting and his journey south became an orgy of riding and shooting.