Elsyng palace

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Elsyng palace is a lost Tudor palace, located in the grounds of Forty Hall in Enfield. The original building date is not known, however, it is thought to have been a medieval hall that was later developed into a royal palace. Earliest traced records show the house belonged to Thomas Elsyng, a Citizen and Mercer of London. In 1492 it was acquired and enlarged by Sir Thomas Lovell, Speaker of the House of Commons and one of Henry VII's Ministers.

After 1539 the estate which was called Little Park was owned by Henry VIII and used as a base for hunting in the royal parkland. His children spent part of their childhood here, and it is where Elizabeth and Edward heard of their father's death. During her reign, Elizabeth visited Elsyng at least four times.

The palace fell out of use in the Stuart period. In 1641 it was sold by King Charles I for £5,300 to the Earl of Pembroke,who probably lived there until his death in 1653. During this period, it is thought that the palace site fell into disrepair.

From around 1624 Sir Nicholas Rainton, a wealthy haberdasher and later Lord Mayor of London, bought the current Forty Hall Estate. Between 1629 and 1636 he built the current Forty Hall at the top of the hill, south of Elsyng Palace. Some time after the death of the Earl of Pembroke, the Elsyng estate was bought by Rainton to extend his holdings. Initially, the ruins of the palace were likely maintained as a folly at the end of a tree-lined avenue, however, the site was eventually demolished sometime in the 1650s with some reuse of the palace bricks in other houses around Enfield.

The rediscovery of the palace site began in the 1960s with the local Enfield Archeology Society finding traces of Tudor vaulted brink drains, and traces of the royal apartments. Subsequent digs in 2004 and 2005 have revealed further traces of the palace and its associated outbuildings.