The Old Court House The Old Court House The Old Court House is a Grade II* listed house located off Hampton Court Green in Richmond upon Thames in south west London whose origins date back to 1536. The architect Sir Christopher Wren, who lived there from 1708 to 1723, was given a 50-year lease on the property by Queen Anne in lieu of overdue payments for his work on St Paul's Cathedral. The lease passed from Wren's son to his grandson. It was purchased from the Crown Estate in 1984. King Henry VIII obtained the newly built Hampton Court Palace from Cardinal Wolsey in
Thomas Wolsey papal legate to dissolve thirty decayed monasteries where monastic life had virtually ceased in practice, including monasteries in Ipswich and Oxford. However, he then used the income to found a grammar school in Ipswich (The King's School, Ipswich) and Cardinal College in Oxford (in 1532, after Wolsey's fall, college was refounded as King Henry VIII's College by Henry VIII; it is now known as Christ Church). In 1528 he began to limit the benefit of clergy. He also attempted, as legate, to force reform on monastic orders like the Augustinian canons. Wolsey died five years before Henry's dissolution of the