General Information

Although Hampton Court Palace is a royal palace, it has not been inhabited by the British royal family since the 18th century. Constructed in two distinct, contrasting architectural styles, domestic Tudor and Baroque, the palace was intended to rival Versailles. Today, it is open to the public, and is a major tourist attraction.

Additional Information

The palace is located 18.8 kilometres south-west of Charing Cross and upstream of central London on the River Thames. Its Home Park is the site of the annual Hampton Court Palace Festival and Hampton Court Palace Flower Show. Along with St James’s Palace, the Hampton Court Palace is one of the only two surviving palaces out of the many owned by Henry VIII. The palace served as the location for the drama film “A Man for All Seasons” (1966), directed by Fred Zinnemann. It also appeared in the HBO miniseries “John Adams” (2008), where Adams was received by King George III as the first American ambassador to Great Britain. Additionally, the palace was the venue for the Road Cycling Time Trial of the 2012 Summer Olympics during which temporary structures for the event were installed on the grounds.

History: Highlights

The palace 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.

History: Explained

Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York, Chief Minister and favourite of Henry VIII, took over the site of Hampton Court Palace in 1514. It had previously been a property of the Order of St John of Jerusalem. Over the following seven years, Wolsey spent lavishly to build the finest palace in England at Hampton Court, a figure of 200,000 gold crowns. Wolsey rebuilt the existing manor house to form the nucleus of the present palace. However, Wolsey was only to enjoy his palace for a few years. In 1528, knowing that his enemies and the King were engineering his downfall, he passed the palace to the King as a gift. Wolsey died two years later in 1530. Today, little of Wolsey’s building work remains unchanged. Within six months of coming into ownership, the King began his own rebuilding and expansion. Henry VIII’s court consisted of over one thousand people, while the King owned over sixty houses and palaces. Few of these were large enough to hold the assembled court, and thus one of the first of the King’s building works (in order to transform Hampton Court to a principal residence) was to build the vast kitchens. These were quadrupled in size in 1529. The architecture of King Henry’s new palace followed the design precedent set by Wolsey: perpendicular Gothic-inspired Tudor with restrained Renaissance ornament. Between 1532 and 1535 Henry added the Great Hall (the last mediaeval great hall built for the English monarchy) and the Royal Tennis Court. The Great Hall features a carved hammer-beam roof. During Tudor times, this was the most important room of the palace. After the reign of George II, no monarch ever resided at Hampton Court. 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.

Architecture: Highlights

As previously mentioned, the palace comprises a combination of two different 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.

Architecture: Explained

The successive owners of the palace were adding new elements and renovating the site. Thus it contains elements of various styles.

The Legend: Highlights

According to legend, the ghost of Catherine Howard haunts the Haunted Gallery. Staff have reported hearing screaming and crying, and even thumping on the chapel doors; visitors have also claimed to have had unpleasant encounters. Jane Seymour, Henry VIII’s third wife, is said to appear holding a candle on the anniversary of her son Edward VI’s birth.

The Legend: Explained

Other ghosts include Henry VIII himself and a woman named Mrs Sybil Penn, Edward VI’s nurse. She died of smallpox in 1562 and her grave was damaged by a storm in the early 19th century. Staff have heard the sound of a spinning wheel and the muttering of an old woman, and found a room containing an old spinning wheel.

Collection: Highlights

The palace houses many works of art and furnishings from the Royal Collection, dating mainly from the two principal periods of the palace’s construction, the early Tudor (Renaissance) and late Stuart to early Georgian period. The most important works are Mantegna’s “Triumphs of Caesar” housed in the Lower Orangery.

Collection: Explained

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. 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.

Chapel Royal: Highlights

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.

Chapel Royal: Explained

The altar is framed by a massive oak reredos in the Baroque style carved by Grinling Gibbons during the reign of Queen Anne. Opposite the altar, at the 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 VIII not to be executed.

Hampton Court Maze: Highlights

A well-known curiosity of the palace’s grounds is the 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.

Interesting Facts

According to legend, the ghost of Catherine Howard haunts the Hampton Court Palace. Staff have reported hearing screaming and crying and even thumping on the chapel doors, visitors have also claimed to have had unpleasant encounters.