Palace Life in Earlier Times

We plan to include information here that gives you an idea of the social history of The Palace. We will be adding more material as it becomes available. This document has been written by Wells’s eminent, local historian, Tony Scrase and gives some idea of domestic life in The Palace and also touches on a bishop’s judicial authority and the prison in the grounds here.

The picture below is of girls from St Brandon’s School for Daughters of the Clergy eating in the Undercroft. The senior arm of the school was moved from Bristol to The Bishop’s Palace in 1939 as the school buildings in Bristol were commandeered for the war effort. It turned out to be a fortuitous move as Bristol became the 5th most heavily bombed city in the UK. Here is some more information, stories and anecdotes relating to the school’s time here.