Text printed on verso reads:

THE GREAT HALL OF THE ARCHBISHOP's PALACE CANTERBURY Anno 1559, Archbishop Parker, at his consecration, found his Palace here in a very ruinous state, the great Hall in particular, partly occasioned by fire, and partly for want of the necessary repairs; he therefore, in the years 1560 and 1561, thoroughly restored the whole, expanding thereon 1406l. 15s. 4d. In the year 1573, he here entertained Queen Elizabeth and her whole Court. This Hall was a right-angled parallelogram, its north and south sides measuring eighty-three, its east and west sixty-eight feet. It is now a garden, the roof, and even some of the bounding walls, being demolished: that on the east side is still standing, wherein are two Gothic canopies of Sussex marble, supported by pillars of the same, probably designed for beaufets or side-boards, the tops of which growing ruinous, have been in part taken down. Along this side runs a terrace, raised on fragments of marble pillars, piled one upon the other, like billets on a wood-stack; the ends of them appeared till within a few years, when a tenant, disliking their appearance, laid a slope of green turf against them. The height of this terrace is about three feet, its breadth nearly nine: there pillars probably were ornaments to the Hall and Palace, pulled down and demolished amongst the other depredations committed by the Puritans at this place. The north wall, now standing, is modern seemingly constructed out of the materials of the Hall, in order to enlarge the garden; the traces of he original north wall are still visible. The porch is only a square of seventeen feet.