Wayneflete’s Tower, Esher

Excavation by P Harp and members of SyAS next to Wayneflete’s Tower. The Tower was built by Bishop William of Wayneflete as a gatehouse, dated by dendrochronology to 1462, and is the last remaining standing structure associated with the palace of the bishops of Winchester that once existed here. The excavation revealed a series of brick walls, the bases of which were not reached at the 2.1m-deep extent of the excavation. The walls defined one complete and two partial walls, and the probable base of a slightly later staircase. The walls are likely to be associated with an extension to the gatehouse built by William Kent in 1730–3, and demolished in 1805. (403)