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Palace of Whitehall

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Palace Of Whitehall

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Henry VIII in 100 Objects: Remains of Whitehall Palace – Site of Henry VIII’s Tudor Palace

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Excavations reveal Henry VIII's Palace (1939)

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The Lost Palace

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Palace Of Whitehall

The Palace of Whitehall at Westminster, Middlesex, was the main residence of the English monarchs from 1530 until 1698, when most of its structures, except for Inigo Jones's Banqueting House of 1622, were destroyed by fire. It had at one time been the largest palace in Europe, with more than 1,500 rooms, overtaking the Vatican, before itself being overtaken by the expanding Palace of Versailles, which was to reach 2,400 rooms. The palace gives its name, Whitehall, to the street on which many of the current administrative buildings of the present-day British government are situated, and hence metonymically to the central government itself. At its most expansive, the palace extended over much of the area bordered by Northumberland Avenue in the north; to Downing Street and nearly to Derby Gate in the south; and from roughly the elevations of the current buildings facing Horse Guards Road in the west, to the then banks of the River Thames in the east —a total of about 23 acres (93,000 m2). It was about 710 yards (650 m) from Westminster Abbey.