Lambeth Palace
For more than 800 years, Lambeth Palace has been the London home of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It stands beside the Thames as a working place of worship, welcome and community, with a garden of just over ten acres that is among the oldest in England.
It is a venue like no other, and a venue second. The Palace is a site of exceptional cultural and architectural importance, and access to it is rare. Any event held there takes place inside a private, spiritual and historic home, and that is both its appeal and its responsibility.
Our strategy
We were asked to review the Palace’s events offer and answer one question: how can events pay their own way without changing what Lambeth Palace is? Our answer was an evolution, not a revolution. We worked alongside the Palace’s own team in finance, operations, events and leadership, so the recommendations were developed with them and reflect the institution’s values.
We recommended a small number of carefully selected activities that suit the Palace’s character: filming and location use, corporate events and high-level hospitality, and charitable and mission-aligned events. Alongside these sits a programme of public and educational engagement, with the gardens at its centre, from school visits and heritage open days to seasonal events on history, biodiversity and conservation.
To support this, we recommended structural changes to how events are organised and managed, giving the Palace a clearer view of how its events perform. We also set out how the Palace should present itself: exclusive, cultural, historic and purpose-led, with a dedicated events website and selective, thoughtful storytelling in place of promotion.
Every recommendation was weighed against the Palace’s integrity, with quality placed ahead of volume. The guiding principle was not commercial expansion for its own sake, but a carefully governed, sustainable events model that protects and supports the long-term future of Lambeth Palace. The work is ongoing, with implementation to follow.