London Trip Report, Day 3: Hampton Court Palce

Day 3, Apr 30, 2013, Tues: Hampton Court Palace

Again another bright sunny day and we were off to Waterloo station to board the Southwest train to Hampton Court Palace..

We passed through wimbledon; there are frequent trains—4 every hour.

In 35 minutes we were at the bridge crossing the Thames to enter the majestic palace..

After a 200 m walk from the train station across the bridge, reached the palace entrance just in time when the palace was opening. 

Bought tickets with the 2 for 1 discount showing our travel card and the coupon. They encourage people to travel by train and avoid congestion—when you present national rail tickets, can buy 2 palace entry tickets for the price of one.

Had the carriage to ourselves.

We already had this map printed from the website.

Hampton Court Palace is in Richmond , Greater London, located 11.7 miles (18.8 kilometres) south west of Charing Cross on the River Thames.

 It was originally built for Cardinal Thomas 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.

The following century, King William III's massive project intended to rival Versailles was begun. Work halted in 1694, leaving the palace in two distinct contrasting architectural styles, domestic Tudor and Baroque.

During the Tudor period, this palace was the scene of many historic events.

In 1537,  King Henry VIII's much desired male heir,  Edward VI, was born at this palace and the child's mother, Jane Seymour, died there two weeks later.

 Four years afterwards, whilst attending Mass in the palace's chapel, the King was informed of his fifth wife's adultery. The Queen, Catherine Howard, was then confined to her room for a few days before being sent to the Tower of London. Legend claims she briefly escaped her guards and ran through The Haunted Gallery to beg Henry for her life but she was recaptured....Staff have reported hearing screaming and crying and even thumping on the chapel doors, visitors have also claimed to have had unpleasant encounters of Catherine Howard.

After King Henry VIII died in 1547 he was succeeded  by his son Edward VI, and then by both his daughters in turn.

 In Hampton Court Queen Mary I (Henry's eldest daughter) spent her honeymoon with King Philip, after their wedding at Winchester. She also chose Hampton Court as the place for the birth of her first child, which turned out to be the first of two false pregnancies..

To continue the ghost theme, Jane Seymour, Henry VIII's third wife and mother of Edward VI has also been seen silently walking towards her son's room.  

Dame Sybil Penn, Edward VI's nurse died of smallpox in 1562 and her grave was damaged by a storm in the early 19th century. Staff have repeatedly complained of hearing the sounds of an old woman muttering and the sound of a spinning wheel. Workman called in to investigate discovered a concealed room containing an old spinning wheel.

In late December 2003, Security guards were unsettled to repeatedly find a fire door open when no one was apparently around. Upon checking the security tape, they were shocked by a ghostly figure, closely resembling King Henry VIII (who died in the 1500s). they’d ruled out their costumed guides. In fact, they don’t even own a costume like the one worn by the figure on the video.

We took a look at the decorated Tudor brickwork of the building and the 500 year old astronomical clock in the tower which still runs showing not just the time of day, but also the date, the month, the quarter of the year, the phases of the moon, the sun and star sign, and high water at London Bridge… 

they definitely needed the last one as they commuted to the palace through the Thames and it seems there were dangerous rapids at London bridge.

This is the Base court right after the entrance...

We sauntered on to the state apartments—the separate king’s apartments and the Queen’s.

This is the Great Hall: It’s England’s last and greatest medieval hall.

The hammer-beam roof is original and dates back 500 years and its walls are hung with Henry VIII’s most splendid tapestries.

Better pic from the net...

This magnificent set of ten depict the biblical story of Abraham.  They were commissioned by Henry VIII in the early 16th century and woven in Brussels between 1541 and 1543 using silk, wool and gold and silver metal threads. The borders of the tapestries  tell the moral meaning of the picture  they surround. 

There are Seats to rest after admiring the tapestries...

 we wondered how these huge pieces are hung on the walls....interesting fact...All  large-scale textiles are hung with Velcro because it distributes the weight evenly while allowing for adjustment to be made.  It also makes it much easier to remove them in an emergency. It takes 14 conservators to hang up a piece using special scaffolds!

This hall is one of Britain’s oldest theatres. William Shakespeare’s company – the ‘King’s Men’ – performed here for King James I over Christmas and New Year in 1603-4.

Even the stair case was AWESOME. paintings on staircase. almost three dimensional—pillars/columns look so real.

the armour room where the weapons were so artistically mounted on the walls was great. 

The 1st room in the state apartments has a magnificent display of arms designed to impress other royal visitors about the king's military might.

This porcelain piece is the new design of fire place meant to warm the room.

Such intricate tapestries—-it took artisans ages to create these pieces. For a skilled weaver a square metre of coarsely woven tapestry would take a month to create. The tapestries at Hampton Court Palace are finely woven and would have taken longer.

Tapestries are wall hangings;  woven from wool, silk and metal threads. Unlike embroidery the design is an integral part of the textile rather than a decoratively stitched fabric. Tapestry was the most popular art form of the English Tudor court.  They were costly to produce and created an impressive yet portable means of displaying royal power.  They were woven in sets, with a different chapter from the story depicted on each tapestry.  Different sets would be hung according to the season or for a special event.  

 Henry VIII owned about 2,500 pieces of tapestry.

Tapestries began with the production of a small painting known as the petit patron, which would then be enlarged by the designer into a full-scale cartoon. This was placed behind the loom so that the weaver could follow the design. Many weavers worked on a single piece side by side

Tapestries were woven sideways. This meant that the image had a set height but an infinite width allowing for more scope with design. The height of the tapestry would determine how many weavers would be able to sit comfortably at the loom. 

The quality of the tapestry was determined by three things: the artistic quality of the cartoon, the skill of the weavers and the density of the weave. The Abraham tapestries have a very high weave count of 18-20 warp threads per inch and are among the most lavish sets produced in Brussels at the time, with a high percentage of silk and much gold and silver metallic thread.

We admired the tapestries, paintings and the royal furniture along with a huge stained glass bay window.

This is the throne room where the king conferred with his visitors... could not help thinking how much grander the Russian palaces are.

The mounted antlers near the staircase entrance were pretty too, though a little disturbing—so many animals must have been hunted for pleasure by the royalty and the trophies had to be displayed!!

Hentry VIII was very fond of hunting—these antlers must be his trophies.

Portrait of Henry VIII here.

He was good looking and an excellent sportsman. After 20 years of marriage, he divorced his wife as he wanted a male heir. ..he ordered celebrations when she died but before her funeral, he fell from a horse, developed injuries and diabetes, became obese...

on the day of his 1st wife's funeral his favorite 3rd wife who had given birth to a male heir died adding to his woes.

Henry's 3 children in this portrait...

—his male heir through his 3rd wife who died shortly after childbirth, his 1st daughter Mary through his 1st wife. 2nd daughter Elizabeth through his 2nd wife Anne Boleyn who was executed at the Tower for adultery.

All these children were rulers of the country (Edward died young at 15 years, Mary also died childless and her sister Elizabeth I did not marry).

Then Scottish King James who was a cousin became the king of England also. The Bible he commissioned is still displayed at this palace; 1604 Bible looked awesome.

After James I, his son Charles I was the king,  Charles I had his honeymoon with his fifteen year old bride, Henrietta Maria here in 1625. But he was imprisoned here during the civil war against monarchy and beheaded.

Following King Charles' execution in 1649, the palace became the property of the Commonwealth presided over by Oliver Cromwell. Unlike some other former royal properties, the palace escaped relatively unscathed.

This gatehouse is also known today as Anne Boleyn's gate, after Henry's second wife. 

Work was still underway on Anne Boleyn's apartments above the gate when the King, had her executed.

Our next stop was the Gift shop.

Then we were at the Chapel Royal

The Gothic vaulted ceiling was stunning—we admired Henry VIII’s crown displayed in the royal pew… tried to picture what it must have been like when the Archbishop read out the news about the infidelities of Catherine Howard, Henry’s 5th wife in this very chapel!!

The double-height chapel was begun by Wolsey and completed under Henry VIII. no pics allowed inside...these are from the net.

Its timber and plaster ceiling, a Gothic vault with Renaissance pendants is stunning. The altar is framed by a massive oak reredos in Baroque style. 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, Henry VIII's 4th wife was painfully dragged down this gallery pleading to Henry not to be executed. Her ghost is said to haunt the place...

The new wings around the Fountain Court contain new state apartments and private rooms, one set for the King and one for the Queen. Each suite of state rooms is accessed by a state staircase. The royal suites are of completely equal value in order to reflect William and Mary's unique status as joint sovereigns.

This is the fountain court installed by William and Mary —Mary was the daughter of James II.

Secrets of the Bedchamber Exhibition:

 

We saw a nice exhibition of 6 royal beds inside...Secrets of the bedchamber exhibition —- no pics allowed. Pics below are from the net. 

We had read up the interesting stories from the website and were particularly fascinated by the fact that a queen had to deliver her baby in the presence of 200 courtiers and yet the son delivered was not acknowledged as the heir!! there were several costumed docents in the bed chambers talking about the stories going on during that era—-very interesting.

 One of the displayed beds was that of Queen Catherine who was the 2nd wife of James II. She had to give birth to her baby on that bed  in her bed chamber in the presence of 200 court members just to prove the legitimacy of the heir. She gave birth to a male child but still the courtiers accused that her baby had died and another brought in the warming pan... they did not want the son of a Christian queen to be the heir and later the 1st queen's daughter became the queen.

Bed of Queen Catherine who was the 2nd wife of James II

Another bed was that of Queen Charlotte, Queen of mad King George III— her silk bedspread was embroidered with thousands of authentic botanic specimens of flowers, trees.

Another was the travel bed of kings, which could be detached into 52 pieces.

We sat on one of the benches at the courtyard and had our picnic lunch.

Then Henry VIII arrived in person with a courtier and started discussing some court intrigue—nice photo op for us…

Next we went on to the formal gardens and admired the tulips—quite straight forward here –not the artistry of St James park flower beds. 

The perfectly manicured yew tree mounds added to the beauty along with the still water bodies.

Highly formal, geometric Great Fountain Garden here, which is directly east of the palace.

It has a French design style, with many features derived from Andre Le Notre, the French landscape designer who also worked at Versailles.

These yew trees are over 200 years old—they are slow growing and are trimmed every 2 years to this shape.

A long coach pulled by 2 thoroughbreds was standing by near the palace.

—we approached them and asked what they charged for the ride and how long should we wait? They told us to pay them right there and we’ll have a ride around within 5 minutes even if no one else joined… we paid up the £5 and sat inside… in a few seconds, people nearby joined and our coach was off on a trot around the palace grounds—-there was an interesting commentary as well. the manicured yew trees we had admired are 200 years old as said earlier—we had imagined it must be strenuous work maintaining their shape but it seems they are trimmed to shape just once in 2 years—they are sloooow growing. AWESOME

After the ride we visited the royal kitchens.

The 36000 sq ft royal kitchens...Built to feed the Court of Henry VIII, these kitchens were designed to feed at least 600 people twice a day.

The annual provision of meat for the Tudor court stood at 1,240 oxen, 8,200 sheep, 2,330 deer, 760 calves, 1,870 pigs and 53 wild boar. This was all washed down with 600,000 gallons of beer.

A Spanish visitor to the Tudor court in 1554 said that the kitchens were ‘veritable hells, such is the stir and bustle in them … there is plenty of beer here, and they drink more than would fill the Valladolid river.'

Working in the kitchens could be a sweaty and dirty job. Henry VIII had to give orders that the scullions should stop going about ‘naked, or in garments of such vileness as they do now, nor lie in the nights and days in the kitchen or ground by the fireside’.

We then went towards the wilderness garden side of the palace… daffodils carpeted the ground and rhododendrons were in full bloom—such a treat for the eyes.

This lovely arched entrance leads to the gardens and the famous Hampton Court Maze; planted in the 1690s for William III of Orange. 

The maze covers a third of an acre and contains half a mile of paths.  The current design replaced an earlier maze planted for Cardinal Wolsey.  It was originally planted with hornbeam. The maze is in 60 acres of riverside gardens.

Entered the maze confident that we’d be able to crack it and emerge at the exit … no.. indeed… turned out the case of humorist Jerome K jerome’s characters in “ 3 men in a boat”.. they had intended to spend 10 minutes in the maze but were lost in it for 3 days!!!

We ran into giggling groups of fellow players who were going round and round like us—it was great fun… somehow managed to come to the heart of the maze and clicked pics of our “triumph”.. 

from there was an easy path which took us back the place where we had entered the maze… on second thoughts we should have stared well at the map at the entrance and memorized our strategy—however they say the map is not current and new blind alleys have been added… anyhow it had been excellent fun…..

The maze can still be threaded from entrance to centre and back by the method of always remaining in contact with the wall on one's right.

Admiring the yellow and white daffodils swaying in the wind we made our way back …

In Wordworth’s words…

A host of golden daffodils

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze…

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance….

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils. …

Next post on Windsor castle is here:
http://adventuretrav.blogspot.com/2017/08/london-trip-report-day-4-windsor-castle.html