A medieval palace stands behind a stone drawbridge and a water filled moat, with a roofless ruined hall open to the sky and springs that give the city its name.
What The Bishop's Palace looks like
A crenellated stone wall about five metres high rings the palace, with a moat along its outer face, crossed only by a bridge under the three storey gatehouse. A portcullis and a drawbridge, worked by machinery above the arched entrance, still operate. The walls and the gatehouse are built of local stone with Doulting stone dressings.
The moat holds about four million imperial gallons, fed by St Andrew's Spring at around forty gallons a second. Mute swans live on the water and ring a bell by the gatehouse when they want feeding.
Behind the main range stands the shell of a five bayed great hall, built in the Early English Decorated Gothic style. Only two of its walls and the four corner turrets remain, roofless and open to the sky since the 1830s.
The precinct is entered from the market place through the arched Bishop's Eye gatehouse. Beyond it, fourteen acres of garden run around the walls, with clipped lawns and mature trees around a croquet lawn. A narrow stream runs from there into the moat.
A gravel courtyard runs along the front of the Bishop's House and the palace chapel, bordered by a long lawn. Upstairs, a first floor gallery runs the length of the house, with portraits on its walls and a vaulted medieval undercroft below.
Shot in The Bishop's Palace
Hot Fuzz used the palace grounds for Sergeant Angel's jog around the moat and the Neighbourhood Watch Alliance's meetings inside the building. The vaulted medieval Undercroft beneath the Bishop's House has stood in for a Tudor scene with the Duke of Norfolk in Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light and a French prison in Poldark. It has also hosted a chess scene between Ravenna and the king in The Huntsman: Winter's War.
Hot Fuzz, 2007
Sergeant Angel jogs the full loop of the moat early in Hot Fuzz, past the resident swans and under the three storey gatehouse. The same water filled moat and drawbridge are pictured here, built in 1341 and still the one approach into the palace.
Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, 2024
Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light filmed a scene from the third episode, Defiance, in the Long Gallery on the first floor of the Bishop's House. Green patterned wallpaper and a run of framed portraits line the room, under an ornate plaster ceiling.
What The Bishop's Palace can double for
Bodiam Castle in Robertsbridge, East Sussex
Bodiam Castle in East Sussex has the same moat and drawbridge, with an intact curtain wall and towers. Its own interior buildings stand as a roofless ruin behind those walls, and Bodiam has stood in as the Swamp Castle exterior in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Bodiam's four corner towers are round rather than the gatehouse towers at Wells, so a wide shot gives it away. Try searching castle moat and drawbridge now.
Scotney Castle in Lamberhurst, Kent
Scotney Castle in Kent is a genuinely roofless medieval ruin standing on an island in its own moat, closer to the open topped look of the Wells great hall than an intact castle would be. Scotney's ruin is round towered and smaller, so a close shot works better than a wide one that would show the difference. Try searching roofless ruin in a moat now.
Leeds Castle in Maidstone, Kent
Leeds Castle in Kent sits across two islands with a full moat and a stone gatehouse bridge, closer in scale to the Wells moat than most English castles. Leeds Castle itself is fully restored rather than ruined, so it suits a lived in medieval or Tudor great house rather than a ruin. Try searching moat and gatehouse bridge now.
.jpg)
.jpg)
