In the 1950s the Oxford academic K. B. McFarlane showed that Fastolf made large sums of money in France, which he managed to transfer back to England and invest in land and property. At the time, his reputation was mixed. One servant wrote of him: "cruel and vengible he hath been ever, and for the most part without pity and mercy" ("Paston Letters", i. 389); and this remark has become famous because it was recorded in the letter. Besides his share in his wife's property he had large estates in Norfolk and Suffolk, a house at Southwark in London and where he also owned the Boar's Head Inn. The site of his house at Southwark, known as Fastolf Place or Palace, was excavated in the 1990s, but only a few pieces of revetment were found.