Eltham Palace

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Lonely Planet review

No fan of Art Deco should miss a trip to Eltham Palace, not so much for the remnants of the palace building itself but for the fabulous Courtauld House on its grounds.

The house was built between 1933 and 1937 by the well-to-do textile merchant Stephen Courtauld and his wife Virginia; from the impressive entrance hall with its dome and huge circular carpet with geometric shapes to the black-marble dining room with silver-foil ceiling and burlwood-veneer fireplace it appears the couple had taste as well as money. They also, rather fashionably for the times, had a pet lemur, and the heated cage, complete with tropical murals and a bamboo ladder leading to the ground floor, for the spoiled (and vicious) 'Mah-jongg' is also on view.

Little remains of the 14th- to 16th-century palace where Edward IV entertained and Henry VIII spent his childhood before decamping for Greenwich, apart from the restored Great Medieval Hall. Its hammer-beam roof is generally rated the third best in the country, behind those at Westminster Hall and Hampton Court Palace.