Great Court

Names

  • Great Court
  • Cloister Court
  • Whalebone Court
  • the Court

Street/Area/District

  • Whitehall

Maps & Views

Descriptions

from Survey of London: Volume 13, St. Margaret, Westminster, Part II: Whitehall I, ed. Montagu H. Cox & Philip Norman (London County Council; British History Online) (1930)

The Great Court.23

Entering the Palace by Whitehall Gate one arrived in the Great Court, sometimes called the Cloister Court24 or Whalebone Court25 through which was the passage to the Hall, the Chapel and the water-gate. The reason for the name Whalebone Court is obvious.26

23. The name "Great Court" is sometimes applied to the adjoining court (the Pebble Court). In the three versions of the plan of 1670 that of Vertue embraces both courts under the one title of "The Court;" that of the Society of Antiquaries entitles both "The Pallace Court;" while that in the Crace Collection shows the Great Court as "The Great Yard" and the adjoining court as "The Great Court," with the words "The Pebble Court" written in.

24. In the account given by Finett of the admission into the Order of the Garter of Viscount Fenton and Baron Knollys in 1615, it is stated that the Spanish ambassador was placed "for sight of the procession as it should passe by, upon the terras in the window there, about the middle of the brick-wall that divides the First-court [the Pebble Court, or Preaching Place] and the Cloyster-court" (Nichols' Progresses of James I, III, p. 79). Cf. the item in the accounts for building the Palace: "the iijrd [bolt] for the halle dore going to the water-gate and the iiijth for the halle dore entyring into the cloyster."

25. Making and hanging a great door "in the brickwall between the whalebone Court & the preaching place" (B.M. Harl MS. 1653, f. 42—Aug. 1614); "setting of a newe stone dorecase in the wall betwixte Whalebone Court and the Preaching Place." (P.R.O., E. 351/3263—1629–30).

26. "And there a serving man he entertaines. An honester in Newgate not remaines. He shew'd his maister sights, to him most strange, Great tall Pauls steeple, and the Royall-Exchange: The Bosse at Billings-gate, and London-stone, And at White-Hall the monstrous great whales bone." (Rowlands' Humors Looking Glasse, pub. 1608.)