ABSTRACT
Tout has fully described the organization and development of the Wardrobe as a government department in Chapters in the Administrative History of Medieval England. In the beginning the Great Wardrobe — ‘great’ meaning ‘large’ not ‘important’ — was a sub-department of the Wardrobe. The Great Wardrobe was originally a large store-house for bulk purchases and later carried out work such as making armour, tents, and liveries as well. In 1360 a permanent home was found for the Great Wardrobe on a site sold by the executors of Sir John Beauchamp to Edward III. It was in the Parish of St Andrews, north of Baynard’s Castle and Puddle Wharf, close to the River Thames for convenient transport. Here Beauchamp had built a large town house with houses and shops beside it, giving onto a small square. On 1 October 1361, the Great Wardrobe moved to these premises.1 The shape of the site is still there. Richard Newcourt’s map of 1658 shows the buildings before the Great Fire, tucked behind the Church of St Andrews, not far from St Paul’s (Fig. 250). A large and Accurate Map of the City of London made by John Ogilby and William Morgan printed in 1676 shows the size of the site, although all the buildings were destroyed in the Fire (Fig. 251). This historic site remains. The hidden courtyard of Wardrobe Place, is still surrounded by eighteenth-century, Victorian and Edwardian buildings, in spite of attempts to demolish two-and-a-half sides of it by Wamford Investments and British Telecom in 1981, as reported in letters to The Times on 12 June and 28 November of that year.
