THE PALACES OF KEW 
7i 
Some three hundred yards from the chief entrance to Kew Gardens 
stands the red-brick house which was for many years called the 
“ Dutch House,” but is known now as Kew Palace, 
^th PalaCC It i s the only survivor of the three buildings that have 
Present borne that title — a title, however, to which it can only 
lay claim as having been the dwelling-place of Royalty. 
For in itself it is merely a plain, substantial mansion of Jacobean 
architecture, generally considered a fine example of its particular 
style, but possessing neither the size nor the dignity we associate 
with the word “ palace.” It is, however, a handsome building, whose 
attractiveness is considerably enhanced by the fine deep red of its 
walls. Its early history has been involved in some obscurity, but a 
good deal of light has been thrown on it by the researches of Mr. 
W. L. Rutton, F.S.A., whose valuable papers in the Home Counties 
Magazine (1905) have been largely relied on for the statements here 
made. 
There appears to be little doubt that the present Kew Palace was 
built on the site, and partially on the foundations, of an older man- 
sion known in its time as the “ Dairy House.” The earliest fact 
known about this house is that it was the property of Sir Henry Gate 
in 1552-3. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth it came into the 
possession of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, the husband of the 
ill-fated Amy Robsart. A letter written by him from Kew, in 
September, 1560, shows that he was here at the time his wife came 
to her tragic end at Cumnor on the 8th of that month. They had been 
married in the chapel of the monastery at West Sheen, which in 
an earlier part of this book is mentioned as having once stood on the 
site now occupied by Kew Observatory. By 1595 the Dairy House 
had come into the possession of Sir Hugh Portman, the representative 
of a distinguished Somersetshire family, one of whom was Lord Chief 
Justice in Queen Mary’s reign. His name is perpetuated in Portman 
Square, Marylebone. Sir Hugh died in 1604, but the house would 
appear to have remained in the hands of his brothers and nephews 
for twenty years or more afterwards. 
About this time (1624-1630) the property was acquired by Samuel 
Fortrey, who probably demolished the old Dairy House. It was he, 
at any rate, who built the present red-brick house. Over the 
entrance there is the date “ 1631,” with the letters “ F.S.C.” The 
date is, no doubt, that of the building, and the letters represent 
