Place Name
York Place, known variously as Sylverton, Bridge Court, and York House, was once the London residence of the archbishops who had a substantial estate in Battersea between the 15th and 19th centuries. The estate had been bequeathed to the See of York in 1480, by Bishop Lawrence Booth for the maintenance of chantries he had founded, and on condition that a lodging in the Mansion House, which he had built in 1471 should be reserved for the Archbishop whenever needed. This riverside manor house stood at the mouth of the Falcon Brook. In 1474, Booth received the King’s licence to enclose his newly built Mansion House at Battersea called Bridgecourt this “Grant, of special grace, and in consideration of good service, to Laurence, Bishop of Durham, and his assigns, that they may make walls and towers with stone, lime and sand about and in their mansion called Bryggecourt in the parish of Bateresey, co. Surrey and so enclose the said mansion, and furnish the said walls and towers with turrets, battlements, crenellations and machicolations, and so hold the said mansion to him and his assigns without impediment from the king or his heirs or any other; and that the said bishop and his assigns may impark all their lands and woods in Bateresey and elsewhere in the said county and enclose them with palings and hedges and make a park or parks of them; and that they shall have free warren and free chace in all their lands and woods aforesaid”. In 1580 Archbishop Sandys lent Bridgecourt, as it had become known, to the Lords of the Council as a prison for obstinate papists. The property was confiscated during the Commonwealth and never returned to its full glory, leaving the See with little option but to sell or make costly repairs. When the ecclesiastical set gave York Place up in the first half of the 18thCentury, it was taken over by the Battersea enamel works. But this venture did not succeed and was closed in the 1770s, to be replaced by smaller housing and a distillery, one of several in Battersea and Wandsworth catering for the demand for gin in London. This too closed and in 1850 it became Price’s Candle factory.
