Catalogue description EPISCOPAL HOUSES OF RESIDENCE

In the early 19th century the Bishop of Gloucester's Palace (on the site of the present King's School) was in a ruinous condition, and a new house was proposed. Since the dioceses of Gloucester and Bristol were united in 1836, and Bristol was considered the more important, Stapleton House, near Bristol, was bought for this purpose in 1840 (Order in Council 3 April 1840). (It was partly paid for by the £6,000 damages awarded to the Bishop of Bristol after his Palace was burnt during the Reform riots of 1831, and also the £1,450 for which the site was later sold. On the division of the sees in 1897 Bristol diocese tried unsuccessfully to reclaim the amount from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who said it had been spent on the Gloucester Bishop's Palace.) The mansion was extravagantly restored and added to for six years after the purchase, at ever-mounting cost. To pay for it the Bishop had to sell part of the episcopal estates (in Cam, Horfield and Preston), and the chapel was eventually consecrated on 24 February 1846.

Eleven years later the Bishop was empowered to sell the estate (Order in Council 20 January 1857), which he did in 1859 to the Society of Merchant Venturers (Order in Council 2 February 1859). They used it as premises for Colston's School, which moved there from the Great House in Bristol in 1861 and has continued at Stapleton to the present day (1967).

The old Palace in Gloucester, except the Abbots' Hall, was demolished and rebuilt on the same site in 1860. Bishops of Gloucester lived there until World War II, when Government departments occupied most of it. Bishop Headlam retained only a few rooms and stayed as a guest at 8 College Green. After the War Bishop Woodward rented the whole of 8 College Green, and this remained the episcopal residence until Palace House was built in 1958. After the Palace was given back to the see, the Dean and Chapter of Gloucester, as Governors of the King's School, bought it for the School's use.