Eltham in 1836
Eltham is in Blackheath hundred, Sutton-at-Hone lathe, eight miles from London on the Maidstone road. Here was a royal palace built at an early but unknown period. Henry III kept Christmas here in 1270. Most of the succeeding sovereigns frequently resided here till Henry VIII, but on the rise of Greenwich it was deserted. The principal part of the palace yet remaining is the ancient hall, 100 feet long by 56 broad, and 60 high, now occupied as a barn or cow-house : the windows now bricked up have been extremely elegant : the roof is of timber curiously wrought and richly ornamented. The area of the palace is surrounded by a high stone wall, and a broad deep moat, now converted into a garden, over which are two bridges. Population in 1831, 2,005, or including the hamlet of Mottingham, 2,129.
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