Elizabeth I ordered a survey of the Manor. This shows that there were 200 door keys missing – giving an indication of the size of the Palace!
In April 1573 a Royal Commission was issued to survey the Mansion House of the Manor of Otford and the adjoining buildings and to consider the necessary repairs.
The costed report is given as an appendix in Hesketh, C. (1915) The Manor House and Great Park of the Archbishop of Canterbury at Otford, Archaeologia Cantiana Vol 31. pp1-24. The Appendix can be found here. The estimate for the repairs was £1379 9s 10p (this was before English money was decimalised in 1971!) . In today’s money, if we take the project cost (comparing its cost to the cost index of all outputs in the economy) it would equate to £402,700. If we assume that much of the cost was labour it would be far higher – £4,855,000. However, if we look at the economy cost – the cost of the project as a percentage of the output of the economy, giving the opportunity cost in terms of the total output of the English economy at the time – it equates to a staggering £164,100,000. We can compare this to the current estimated project cost of the APCT restoration of £2,000,000!
In 1596 Her Commissioners reported that Otford woylde not be fytt for her majestie to lye in for that yt standeth in a verie wett soyle upon strong water continually ronninge under yt.