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Bridewell Palace in London was built as a residence of King Henry VIII and was one of his homes early in his reign for eight years. Given to the City of London Corporation by his son King Edward VI in 1553 as Bridewell Hospital for use as an orphanage and place of correction for wayward women, Bridewell later became the first prison/poorhouse to have an appointed doctor.
It was built on the banks of the Fleet River in the City of London between Fleet Street and the River Thames in an area today known as Bridewell Place, off New Bridge Street. By 1556 part of it had become a jail known as Bridewell Prison. It was reinvented with lodgings and was closed in 1855 and the buildings demolished in 1863–1864.
The name "Bridewell" subsequently became a common name for a jail, used not only in England but in other cities colonised by Britain including Dublin and New York.
Bridewell Palace consisted of two brick-built courtyards, with the royal lodgings in three storeys around the inner courtyard. A grand processional staircase led to them from the outer courtyard. Bridewell was the first royal palace not to have a great hall and its staircase was a feature that recurs in Henry VIII's later residences. On the north side of the outer courtyard stood the kitchens and gatehouse. There was a long gallery () which connected the inner court with Blackfriars, issuing out at Apothecaries HallApothecaries Hall - Grade I listing - on Blackfriars Lane which formerly ran beyond its western façade.
After Wolsey's fall in 1530, the palace was leased to the French ambassador 1531–1539, and was the setting for Holbein's painting, The Ambassadors (1533).
In the late 17th century, the infamous London brothel keeper Elizabeth Cresswell was incarcerated in Bridewell Prison, possibly for reneging on a debt. She died there at some point between 1684 and 1698. London: The Wicked City: A Thousand Years of Prostitution and Vice (2007) Fergus Linnane, Robson Ltd p73-77 London, the Synfulle Citie (1990) E. J. Burford, University of Michigan p205John Callow, "Madam Cresswell" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, Oxford online (subscription only) She is probably interred in the Bridewell graveyard and legend runs that in her will she left £10 for a sermon to be read that said nothing ill of her. After considerable time, a young clergyman was found who would perform the funeral rites. After an extremely lengthy sermon on social morality, he said "By the will of the deceased it is expected that I should mention her and say nothing but what was well of her. All I shall say of her, therefore, is this — she was born well, lived well, and died well; for she was born with the name of Cresswell, lived at Clerkenwell, and died in Bridewell." London, the Synfulle Citie (1990) E. J. Burford, University of Michigan p205
Most of the palace was destroyed in the Great Fire of London, and rebuilt in 1666–1667. In 1700 it became the first prison to appoint medical staff (a doctor).
Part of the vacated site was used for the erection of De Keyser's Royal Hotel in 1874, De Keyser's Royal Hotel, Victoria Embankment, London which was requisitioned for military purposes in 1915 and became the subject of a leading case on the use of the royal prerogative decided by the House of Lords in 1920. By 1921 Lever Brothers had acquired the hotel building for use as the head office of the company's business.
In the Beatles film, A Hard Day's Night, Paul McCartney's grandfather (Wilfrid Brambell) reports the arrest of Ringo Starr to the studio by saying "The police have the poor lad in the Bridewell – he'll be pulp by now!"
The nearby Bridewell Theatre takes its name from the palace.
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