Banqueting House, Whitehall Banqueting House, Whitehall The Banqueting House, Whitehall, is the grandest and best known survivor of the architectural genre of banqueting house and the only remaining component of the Palace of Whitehall. The building is important in the history of English architecture as the first structure to be completed in the neo-classical style, which was to transform English architecture. Begun in 1619 and designed by Inigo Jones in a style influenced by Andrea Palladio, the Banqueting House was completed in 1622 at a cost of £15,618, 27 years before King Charles I of England was beheaded on a scaffold in front
Whitehall, Cheam Nonsuch Palace, built nearby by King Henry VIII and pulled down in the 1680s. In the garden there is a medieval well which served an earlier building on the site. It is said once to have been called "The Council House," owing to its use by Queen Elizabeth I, for holding an impromptu council meeting for signing papers while on a hunting expedition from Nonsuch Palace. The oldest private school in the country, The Cheam School, was founded at Whitehall in Cheam in 1645. It is believed that the house was the residence of the merchant, lawyer and philosopher, James