Poirot reveals the secrets of Eltham Palace
New audio tour reveals more of the house’s history
Actor David Suchet, star of the long-running television series ‘Poirot’, has recorded a new audio tour of Eltham Palace. The tour, available on site now, gives visitors an insight into the stories behind this magnificent property. Suchet is a well-known face at Eltham, having filmed several episodes of ‘Poirot’ and the recent BBC drama ‘Maxwell’ at the property. The tour incorporates two rooms which are newly open to the public, giving a peek behind the scenes of the opulence of the mansion.
The hour-long audio tour takes visitors through the stunning Art Deco mansion and Tudor Great Hall of Eltham Palace, the boyhood home of Henry VIII. The mansion was built in the 1930s by Stephen and Virginia Courtauld, whose love for fashion and glamour had a dramatic effect on the style of the Palace. It is now an outstanding masterpiece of Art Deco glamour combined with classic Tudor architecture.
David Suchet commented: “I really feel honoured and privileged to have made this tour narration of Eltham Palace. I’ve been on a couple of occasions filming ‘Poirot’, and more recently, and more memorably for me in a way, was the filming of ‘Robert Maxwell’. During that time, I’d come almost every day for about three weeks and spent a lot of the time in the house. It was just extraordinary for me to be in this wonderful, wonderful house.”
Visitors to the Palace can see two new rooms on the audio tour; the Telephone Room and the Flower Room. The Telephone Room houses an original restored 1930s pay-telephone, which was installed by the extremely modern Courtaulds when they redesigned the house in the 1930s. The Courtaulds would charge their guests to use the phone to make external calls – a testament to the enormous cost of telecommunication in the 1930s, and a glimpse of the expense to which the Courtaulds went to have the most advanced technology and style in their home.
The Flower Room, a cold store once used to keep the vast arrangements of fresh flowers which graced the Palace, is also now open to visitors. The room was home to the Courtaulds’ much loved pet ring-tailed lemur, Mah-Jongg who had his own centrally-heated cage complete with private access ladder – which can still be viewed by visitors to Eltham.
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Eltham Palace is located at Court Road, London, SE9 5QE (Tel: 020 8294 2548) Junction 3 of M25, then A20.
www.english-heritage.org.uk/ElthamPalace
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