‘Lost’ palace watercolour goes under hammer

The most detailed depiction of Henry VIII’s “lost” palace is expected to fetch up to £1.2 million.

Nonsuch Palace – so named because no other palace could equal it – was commissioned by the Tudor king as a celebration of the birth of his first legitimate son and to outshine the great palaces built by his rival, King Francis I of France.Construction on the palace in Cuddington, Surrey, began in 1538, on the 30th anniversary of Henry’s accession to the throne.

By flattening the parish church of Cuddington to make way for the palace’s construction, it demonstrated the king’s new dominance as head of the Church of England.

But it was still incomplete when Henry died in 1547 and after standing for fewer than 150 years, fell into disrepair in the 1680s.

By 1690 it was all but gone and for centuries experts only knew what it looked like because of written records and paintings.