Hero
The Black Prince's Palace
Village gossip said a warrior prince lived here. The diggers proved it.
Stand where it happened
- What's there
- Low bank beside a car park near the parish church
- Legend from
- 14th century
- Tone
- Curious
The prince in Princes Risborough was the Black Prince himself. Locals always said his palace stood just west of the church, and the diggers agreed.
Princes Risborough takes its name from Edward of Woodstock, the Black Prince, who held the manor in the 1300s. For generations, popular tradition said the moated plot of about an acre just west of the churchyard, known as the Mount, was the site of the Black Prince's palace. In this case the story seems to have some truth in it. When the site was excavated in 1955, ahead of building work, diggers found wall footings, decorated floor tiles, pottery and a coin of Edward I, and concluded it was almost certainly the prince's manor house, which also had an important stud. Most of it now lies under a car park.