Known as King John’s Palace, or nowadays the Castle.

The engraving shown on the Home Page was reproduced from the ‘History Preserving the Monuments of Antiquity’, published 25 May 1784 by S Hooper.

The ruin today has changed very little to the one shown on the engraving. Though scale appears different if the known features are directly compared, the basic structure remains more or less the same.

The Yorkist and Tudor monarchs had no interest in Clipstone. A 1525 survey refers to

‘First the southest end of the chamber there is in great dekay and ruyne in stonework, tymber, lede and plaster and gravel ende of same is flede outwarde so part of the rove (roof) and of flour of the said chamber is fallen downe.

From a time after that we feel it was robbed, (if anyone has any information regarding this, we would appreciate help here).

The ruins are constructed of random rubble infil, we assume the outer covering was robbed, Beeston Lodge to the west of the Castle was of a similar type. Beeston Lodge assumed to be the Gate House to the Peel, is now totally destroyed.

The King's Houses are in desperate need of holding work. English Heritage, Notts. County Council and British Coal provided funds to pay for work to support one of the arches in 1991.

Situated on private land in a field next to the tiny hamlet of Old or Kings’ Clipstone on the B6030.

King John's Palace was one of the first three listed buildings in the country. Stonehenge and Fountains Abbey the other two.

1164-5 £20 was spent on the Kings’ House out of the Manor of Tickhill. This gives us a starting date to the royal interest in the property. Also the stone carvings found on site suggest this date.

The building’s are said to have covered two acres with stables for two hundred horses which gives some idea of the scale of building on the site.

Six generations of Plantagenet Kings’ were recorded as delighting in the pleasures, Clipstone had to offer.

Its grandeur can be summarised by the fact that Richard Lionheart chose Clipstone Palace to meet King William of Scots on April 2^nd 1194. We can only imagine the entertainment’s planned. No king of Richard’s standing would choose to meet a fellow monarch particularly when greater houses were within reach. Maybe less formality and the pleasure of the hunt were the reason for this choice. Richard was chronicled at the time with being "much pleased" by what he found at Clipstone.

King John, Richard’s brother was given The Manors of Clipstone, while still Earl of Mortain. Deprived of them once because of mutinous behavior in trying to seize the crown whilst his brother was at the Crusades, they were later restored. There are actually only five recorded visits to the Kings Houses but possibly some went unchronicled. For some reason ‘King John’s Palace’ stuck but not at the time. William Senior’s map 1630 refers to the building as Manor Garth and Hoopers engraving refers to the Kings Houses 1784.

The earliest O/S Maps start to use the term King John’s Palace. Probably this term taken from the local populous. Certainly other stories, such as King John whilst at hunt was bought news of a Welsh uprising ordered the 28 boy hostages held at Nottingham Castle to be hung. This was said to be under Parliament Oak. Unfortunately there is no written proof of this.

Edward I

With Edward’s Assession 20 November 1272 one can truly describe the Kings houses as a Royal Palace.

1290