When your next door neighbour is Henry VIII’s pleasure palace, it would be wrong not to take advantage. We decided to treat ourselves to a years membership of the Historic Royal Palaces trust which allows unlimited visits to Hampton Court, plus 4 other royal abodes.
The Lord Chancellor, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, (born in Ipswich, rose to prominence as a catholic priest serving Henry VIII, died of natural causes on his way to face charges of treason after the fiasco around the annulment of Henry’s first marriage to Catherine of Aragon.) Wolsey began the building up of Hampton Court for his own purposes in the early 1500’s but Henry took a liking to it and by 1530, it became one of his homes, showcasing his wealth and power.
Everything is on a grand scale
and my photography doesn’t do any justice to the inside of beautiful old buildings Hence me borrowing this photo of the Grand Hall and its 500 year old tapestries from the HRP trust web pages.
These priceless tapestries depict the story of Abraham as Henry tried to affiliate himself with good biblical teaching. They would have travelled with Henry as he moved his “court” to various other palaces around the country. But Henry did love the lavish lifestyle and this was where he chose to spend a lot of time, entertaining and showing off. The palace continued to be a royal residence long after Henry and his six wives had lived there.
And if you look over the fence, theres Firecrest.
Shakespeare performed many of his plays for Elizabeth I and James I in the 1600s. During the Georgian era in the 1700s Sir Christopher Wren was commissioned to revamp the palace and thankfully instead of tearing down the old Tudor buildings he added the little extention that we can see through the gates from our mooring.
No money was spared with the decor, and Hampton Court is likened to the palace of Versailles
But grand though the insides were, I do love wandering around the gardens
Hampton Court is famous for its maze, but we didn’t fancy competing with hordes of little kids getting lost. Instead we enjoyed searching for all the amazing characters made out of willow weaving that were lost amongst the flower beds
But thankfully the war of the Roses was done and dusted before Henry VIII came to the throne
Hampton court fell out of favour as a royal residence in the 18th C. Many of the rooms became Grace and Favour apartments for the aristocracy if they had fallen upon hard times and had served the monarchy well. This continued until the 1980s. It was Queen Victoria who first opened up the Court to the general public to stroll around.
Whilst I have barely scratched the surface of what we saw, having HRP trust membership definitely paid for itself as we both popped in and out several times to enjoy different aspects of the palace during our 5 day stay.
https://www.hrp.org.uk/hampton-court-palace/#gs.a0czva