The Forgotten Thames Palace That Bishops Called Home for 1,300 Years

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Most visitors to London plan their days around the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, and the Tate Modern. But along a quiet bend of the Thames in Fulham sits a palace so overlooked that even many Londoners have never been inside. That palace is Fulham Palace — and it has been standing since before the Norman Conquest.

A Palace Hidden Along the Thames

Fulham Palace stands a short walk from Putney Bridge, beside the river, surrounded by botanical gardens and a moat that is now dry but was once the longest in England. The building you see today is mostly 18th-century Georgian, but parts date back to medieval times, and the site has been occupied since at least the 6th century.

It is not a grand spectacle in the way Buckingham Palace is. There are no crowds, no queues, and no guards in bearskin hats. Instead, you arrive through a wrought-iron gate into a wide courtyard, with a chapel to one side and a wisteria-covered wall ahead of you. It is quiet in a way that feels almost strange for London.

The grounds are free to enter. That alone is worth knowing.

For centuries, this bend of the Thames was considered the countryside. The Bishops of London kept a country estate here so they could escape the noise and squalor of the City. By the time London grew large enough to swallow Fulham whole, the palace was so embedded in its surroundings that nobody could quite decide what to do with it. So it stayed.

Bishops on the Banks of the Thames for 1,300 Years

Fulham Palace served as the country residence of the Bishops of London from around 704 AD until 1975 — more than 1,300 years of continuous occupation. In 1975, Bishop Gerald Ellison decided it was no longer practical for a modern bishop to run a 13-room palace and 13-acre estate. The Church of England handed it over to the local council, and it became what it is today: a museum, a café, and a garden open to all.

What is extraordinary is that 36 successive bishops lived and worked here, managing their diocese from these rooms and watching the Thames move outside. Some were men of great political power — present at court, influential in Parliament, shaping the Church of England through its most turbulent centuries. Others were quieter scholars who wanted a garden and a view of the water.

Bishop Edmund Grindal, suspended by Queen Elizabeth I for refusing to suppress Puritan prophesying, spent his years of suspension at Fulham Palace. Bishop William Howley was the man who drove to Kensington Palace in the early hours of 20 June 1837 and woke the 18-year-old Princess Victoria to tell her she was now Queen of England. He had passed through these gates many times before that morning, and many times after.

The Moat, the Chapel, and the Walled Garden

The dry moat that surrounds much of the palace was once considered the longest domestic moat in England. For centuries it protected the site from flooding and offered the bishops a degree of separation from the world outside their walls. You can still trace the line of the old moat as you walk the grounds.

The chapel is the oldest surviving part of the palace, dating to the Tudor period. It still holds regular services. Step inside and you are standing in a room that has been used for Christian worship for 500 years. The ceiling and woodwork are original. It is genuinely old in a way that even London can sometimes make you forget is possible.

The walled garden is one of the most compelling reasons to make the journey. Bishops had access to botanical networks across the world, and the garden reflects that history. Trees and plants arrived here from North America, Asia, and Africa — specimens that had never been grown in England before. A North American Tulip Tree growing in the grounds is believed to be one of the oldest in England, planted in the 17th century from seeds brought across the Atlantic. The first wisteria ever grown in Britain is said to have been planted here, though historians debate the precise claim.

Fulham Palace Today — Free, Peaceful, and Almost Empty

The museum inside the palace covers the history of the site and its long line of bishops. It is modest in size — you can move through it in under an hour — but it is well put together and gives genuine context to what you are seeing outside in the grounds.

The café serves lunch and afternoon tea in a light, airy room that opens onto the courtyard. The produce on the menu often comes from the walled kitchen garden, which grows seasonal fruit, vegetables, and herbs on the same ground where bishops once had kitchen gardens of their own.

The whole estate covers 13 acres. There is enough space to spend an unhurried afternoon here without feeling rushed or crowded. On weekday mornings, the grounds are sometimes almost empty. That is not a failing of the place — it is the point of it.

Admission to the grounds and gardens is free. There is a small charge to enter the museum. There is no souvenir shop selling postcards and fridge magnets. What there is instead is a real, working historic site, quietly maintained, in a city that has mostly forgotten it exists.

How to Get to Fulham Palace

Fulham Palace is a 10-minute walk from Putney Bridge Underground Station on the District Line. You can also reach it from Hammersmith, either by bus or on foot along the Thames Path, which runs directly past the palace gates.

The Thames Path along this stretch of the river is one of the most peaceful walks in London — far from the tourist pressure of the South Bank. You pass rowing clubs, houseboats, and old garden walls with branches trailing over the towpath. If you combine the palace visit with a riverside walk, you can easily fill a half-day in west London without spending much money at all.

If you are putting together your first London trip and working out how to use your time, the London trip planning hub is a useful place to start. And if you enjoy finding London’s less obvious sides, the piece on the walled London garden that shaped American history is a good companion to this one.

Fulham Palace does not ask for your attention. It simply sits there, beside the river, waiting for the visitors who know to look.

London keeps its secrets well. Fulham Palace is one of the best of them — and it has been there, beside the water, for longer than the city can quite remember.

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