The Brickmakers of St Albans
A Talk given to the St Albans & Hertfordshire Architectural & Archaeological Society at St Albans on 7th January 2003

Hatfield House
1496

Some fifty years later, and five miles to the East, Cardinal Morton built a large palace of brick. The first Hatfield Palace took the form of a quadrangle 218ft square, with the great gateway facing the present site of Hatfield House. Work started in 1496 and it was one of the first large houses built solely for habitation, without any means of defence, and the towers and battlements were purely ornamentation. Most of the palace was demolished for building material when Hatfield House was erected in 1608. However the western range, which contained the banqueting hall remains.

Talk: It is almost certain that for the old palace, and other major brick buildings of the period, bricks were made locally.

Supplementary Information

The picture is from an old postcard

There is further information on Hatfield House on the Hatfield page.

If you can add to the information given above tell me.