Suffolk Place

The position was highly prominent as Borough High Street (or Southwark Street) was the principal thoroughfare leading from London Bridge and the City of London, to Canterbury and Dover, a route used by monarchs and others, including the pilgrims in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

It was built in the fifteenth century and rebuilt in fine Renaissance style in 1522 by Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk (c.1484-1545) a favourite of King Henry VIII.

[1][2] On 4 February 1536[3] it was taken over by King Henry VIII who exchanged it with Brandon for Norwich Place on the Strand, on the north side of the Thames, nearer to the Palace of Westminster.

[4] It was occupied by Queen Mary I (1553-1558) and her new husband Philip II of Spain on the night before their state entry into London in 1554.

This was possibly the time when it was depicted by Anthony van den Wyngaerde in his Panorama of London, to the left of Borough High Street in the foreground of the picture.