Hampton Court Palace, England

Hampton Court Palace is a royal palace in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, Greater London; it has not been inhabited by the British royal family since the 18th century. The palace is located 11.7 miles (18.8 km) south west of Charing Cross and upstream of Central London on the River Thames. It was originally built forCardinal Wolsey, a favourite of King Henry VIII, circa 1514; in 1529, as Wolsey fell from favour, the palace was passed to the King, who enlarged it. It would serve as the location filmed for the 1966 film A Man for All Seasons, directed by Fred Zinnemann.

The following century, William III's massive rebuilding and expansion project intended to rival Versailles was begun. Work halted in 1694, leaving the palace in two distinct contrasting architectural styles, domestic Tudor and Baroque. While the palace's styles are an accident of fate, a unity exists due to the use of pink bricks and a symmetrical, albeit vague, balancing of successive low wings.

Today, the palace is open to the public, and is a major tourist attraction. It is cared for by an independent charity, Historic Royal Palaces which receives no funding from the Government or the Crown.

The palace's Home Park is the site of the annual Hampton Court Palace Festival and Hampton Court Palace Flower Show. Along with St. James's Palace, it is one of only two surviving palaces out of the many owned by Henry VIII.

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The Cartoon Gallery at Hampton Court

The palace houses many works of art and furnishings from the Royal Collection, mainly dating from the two principal periods of the palace's construction, the early Tudor (Renaissance) and late Stuart to Early Georgian period. The single most important works are Mantegna's Triumphs of Caesar housed in the Lower Orangery. The palace once housed the Raphael Cartoons now kept at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Their former home, the Cartoon Gallery on the south side of the Fountain Court, was designed by Christopher Wren; copies painted in the 1690s by a minor artist, Henry Cooke, are now displayed in their place. Also on display are important collections of ceramics, including numerous pieces of blue and white porcelain collected by Queen Mary II, both Chinese imports and Delftware.

Queen Mary II's Bedchamber, also known as Queen Caroline's State Bedchamber

Much of the original furniture from the late 17th and early 18th centuries, including tables by Jean Pelletier, "India back" walnut chairs by Thomas Roberts and clocks and a barometer by Thomas Tompion. Several state beds are still in their original positions, as is the Throne Canopy in the King's Privy Chamber. This room contains a crystal chandelier of circa 1700, possibly the first such in the country.

The King's Guard Chamber contains a large quantity of arms: muskets, pistols, swords, daggers,powder horns and pieces of armour arranged on the walls in decorative patterns. Bills exist for payment to a John Harris dated 1699 for the arrangement, which is believed to be that which can still be seen today.

Chapel Royal

Stained glass windows in the Great Watching Chamber.

The double height chapel was begun by Wolsey and completed under Henry VIII. Its timber and plaster ceiling, a Gothic vault with Renaissance pendants completed by trumpeting boys, is considered the "most important and magnificent in Britain." The altar is framed by a massive oak reredos in Baroque style carved by Grinling Gibbons during the reign of Queen Anne. Opposite the altar, at first floor level, is the royal pew where the royal family would attend services apart from the general congregation seated below. Queen Catherine Howard was painfully dragged down this gallery pleading to Henry not to be executed.

Grounds

The grounds as they appear today were laid out in grand style in the late 17th century. There are no authentic remains of Henry VIII's gardens, merely a small knot garden, planted in 1924 which hints at the gardens' 16th century appearance. Today, the dominating feature of the grounds is the great landscaping scheme constructed for Sir Christopher Wren's intended new palace. From a water-bounded semicircular parterre, the length of the east front, three avenues radiate in crow's foot pattern. The central avenue containing not a walk or a drive, but the great canal, known as the Long Water, excavated during the reign of Charles II, in 1662. The design, radical at the time, is another immediately recognizable influence from Versailles, and was indeed laid out by pupils of André Le Nôtre, Louis XIV's landscape gardener.

On the south side of the palace is the Privy Garden bounded by semi-circular wrought iron gates by Jean Tijou. This garden, originally William III's private garden, was replanted in 1992 with manicured hollies and yews along a geometric system of paths.

A garden recreated in the style of Henry VIII's gardens of 1536. In the background is William III's Banqueting House (H on plan) of 1700.

On a raised site overlooking the Thames, is a small pavilion, the Banqueting House. This was built circa 1700, for pleasurable and informal picnics and entertainments in the gardens rather than for the larger state dinners which would have taken place inside the palace itself. A nearby conservatory houses the "Great Vine", planted in 1769; by 1968 it had a trunk 81 inches thick and has a length of 100 feet. It still produces an annual crop of grapes.

A well known curiosity of the palace's grounds is Hampton Court Maze; planted in the 1690s by George London and Henry Wise for William III of Orange. The maze covers a third of an acre and contains half a mile of paths. It is possible that the current design replaced an earlier maze planted for Cardinal Wolsey. It was originally planted with hornbeam; it has been repaired latterly using many different types of hedge.

Inspired by a painting, The Family of Henry VIII, hanging in the palace's Haunted Gallery, a new garden in the style of Henry VIII’s 16th century Privy Gardens has been designed to celebrate the anniversary of that King’s accession to the throne. Sited on the former Chapel Court Garden, it has been planted with flowers and herbs from the 16th century, and is complete by gilded heraldic beasts and bold green and white painted fences. The heraldic beasts carved by Ben Harms and Ray Gonzalez of G&H Studios includes The Golden Lion of England, The White Greyhound of Richmond, The Red Dragon of Wales and the White Hart of Richard II, are all carved from English oak. The garden's architect was Todd Langstaffe-Gowan, who collaborated with James Fox and the Gardens Team at Historic Royal Palaces.

Later years

After the reign of George II, no monarch ever resided at Hampton Court. In fact, George III, from the moment of his accession, never set foot in the palace; he associated the state apartments with a humiliating scene when his father had once struck him following an innocent remark.

In 1796, the Great Hall was restored and in 1838, during the reign of Queen Victoria, the restoration was completed and the palace opened to the public. The heavy-handed restoration plan at this time, reduced the Great Gatehouse (A), the palace's principal entrance, by two stories and removed the lead cupolas adorning its four towers.

On 2 September 1952, the palace was given statutory protection by being grade I listed. Other buildings and structures within the grounds are separately grade I listed, including the early 16th-century tilt yard tower — the only surviving example of the five original towers; Christopher Wren's Lion gate built for Queen Anne and George I; and the Tudor and 17th-century perimeter walls.

Throughout the 20th century in addition to becoming a major London tourist attraction, the palace housed 50 grace and favour residences given to esteemed servants and subjects of the crown. It was an elderly recipient of one such grace and favour apartment who caused a major fire, which spread to the King's Apartments in 1986. This led to a new programme of restoration work which was completed in 1990.