Bishop's Palace, Lichfield

The first building at this location was built for Bishop Langton in 1304–14. This building stretched along the east wall of the Close and was enclosed by its own wall. Walter the carpenter and Hugh de la Dale, a mason were responsible for a palace whose great hall was the fifth or sixth largest in England at the time at 100 ft x 56 ft. The hall was probably aisled, with columns supporting an elaborately carved wooden roof admired in 1634 for its gilt carvings. Paintings of the coronation, marriages, wars and funeral of Edward I decorated the walls and were still visible in the 1590s. The bishop's private quarters lay north of the hall. To the south what was called the Lady's Chamber in 1685…

Construction of the building began in 1686 and was completed in 1687. The architect was Edward Pierce who had previously worked as one of Christopher Wren's masons. The building was built in the Queen Anne style and comprises two storeys with a seven-window range, low-pitched hipped roof with dormer windows. The front of the house has a symmetrical layout and is topped with a classical pediment over the doorway. As built the palace comprised on the ground floor, a central hall and parlour with a drawing room on the east and a chapel on the west. A bakehouse, brewhouse, and pigsty were built in the north-west corner of the grounds, the rest of which was laid out as gardens and a cherry…