IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Five Acres, KINGS LANGLEY, WD4 9JU

A view down Vicarage Lane in Kings Langley.

Not the Royal Palace, the site of which is here Image, but a pub in the hamlet of Kings Langleyhill, as it is described on old Ordnance Survey maps. The pub is 17th century so post-dates the demise of the Royal Palace by at least 100 years.

This image was taken in late September. The leaves on the trees are starting to turn golden.

This was nothing compared with the two mile diversion ahead in Watford.

The former Royal Palace at Kings Langley was built under the supervision of Eleanor of Castile (1241 - 1290), wife of King Edward I. It appears to have been started around 1276 and to have been completed by 1299. This is how the village of Langley got its epithet Kings. Edmund de Langley, the first Duke of York and fifth son of King Edward III, was born here in 1341. Around 1349, during the outbreak of plague, known as the Black Death, King Edward III used the Royal Palace as his seat of government away from London. The Palace seems to have fallen into disuse during the Wars of the Roses, and was demolished around 1469. Apart from occasional underground finds during construction works for the nearby Image nothing remains of the former structure. The Ordnance Survey 1:10,000 scale map shows the centre of the site to be in the rear gardens of the houses in the photograph, probably the second house from the right being where the actual symbol is. This photograph was taken from the footpath leading south.

The surviving building of the former Dominican priory established in 1308 by Edward II, next to the Royal Palace of Kings Langley. Although much restored this is the only surviving building from the medieval palace complex. It is now part of Rudolph Steiner School, Kings Langley and is used for staff accommodation. The foreground allotments are also part of the school.