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Hampton Court Palace is a palace in south-west London on the left
bank of the River Thames in the borough of Richmond upon Thames. The
castle was a favorite residence of the English and British kings
from 1528 to 1737. Originally it was built in the Tudor style,
towards the end of the 17th century and in the 18th century large
parts were rebuilt in the English Baroque style. With its vast
proportions, sumptuous interior and extensive gardens, it is
considered one of the major Tudor and Baroque masterpieces in
England.
The castle witnessed several royal weddings, births
and deaths. Henry VIII married his sixth wife Catherine Parr here.
His son Edward VI. was born and baptized at the castle, whose mother
Jane Seymour and James I's wife, Anna, died at the castle, and
William III. suffered a riding accident in the park, from the
consequences of which he died a little later.
Since 1236, the Order of St. John has had an estate here. Excavations and documents show that the farm consisted of a large barn and a stone administration building, but probably had no or only very limited living quarters. In the 14th century a residential building was added to the complex, as the estate was used as overnight accommodation due to its favorable location between the royal palaces in Sheen and Byfleet. After the royal palace at Byfleet was abandoned again in the early 15th century, Hampton lost its function as overnight accommodation. Like many other estates, Hampton was probably no longer managed by the Johanniter at this time, but leased out. The first named tenant was the courtier Giles Daubeney, who took over the estate in 1494. Daubeney became Lord Chamberlain of Henry VII the following year. As the King returned to residence at nearby Richmond Castle, he also frequently visited Daubeney at his Hampton estate. Daubeney therefore had various expansions carried out, but died in 1508.
The Archbishop of York, Thomas Wolsey, leased the estate in 1514 for
99 years. He became Cardinal and Lord Chancellor the following year
and over the next seven years converted the 14th-century house into
a magnificent country palace based on designs by Henry Redman. The
palace contained not only a luxurious new bishop's apartment, but
also three guest apartments for the royal family and a high chapel.
Wolsey was heavily criticized for his lifestyle and especially for
his magnificent palaces at York Place and Hampton Court; for
example, in 1522, the poet John Skelton, in his verse Why Come Ye
Not to Court?, mocked that while the royal court had excellence, the
court of Hampton Court had supremacy. Unable to obtain a divorce
from the Pope for Henry VIII from his first wife, Catherine of
Aragon, Wolsey eventually lost favor with the King and in 1528 lost
both York Place and Hampton Court, both of which were occupied by
Henry VIII.
Hampton Court quickly became Henry VIII's new
favorite residence. In just ten years he built the enormous sum of
£62,000 - around £18 million in today's values - on the castle. When
work was completed around 1540 it was considered one of the most
magnificent and modern castles in England. The castle had a
magnificent chapel, a large banquet hall, tennis courts, bowling
alleys, gardens and a 1,100-acre deer park. The castle had a large
28-seat water-flush toilet, the Great House of Relief, water was
supplied by lead pipes from Coombe Hill, near Kingston, 3 miles
away.
All six of Henry's wives lived in the palace and each
received lavishly designed apartments. Heinrich had his own living
quarters converted and renovated at least six times. There were also
living quarters for his children and for a large number of
courtiers, guests and servants.
The king received numerous
guests and visitors from all over Europe in the castle. The most
famous was the six-day visit by the French ambassador in August
1546, when the palace accommodated around 200 guests in addition to
Henry's court, which numbered around 1300 people. For this purpose,
the castle was surrounded by a magnificent tent camp. The children
who succeeded Heinrich to the throne also used the castle as their
residence. Elizabeth I had some minor alterations made, including
that of the eastern kitchen.
The relatively modest life at Elisabeth's court changed under her
successor Jakob I. Jakob often went hunting in the deer park, at
court balls, banquets and masquerades as well as numerous,
increasingly elaborate theatrical performances now took place more
frequently. There is evidence that Shakespeare and the King's Men
played Christmas 1603 in the great hall before the king. In 1604 a
synod of the Anglican Church was held at the castle, with Jacob
presiding, at which the King James Bible, the most influential
translation of the Bible into English, was commissioned. Jacob's son
and successor Charles I had some modifications made, including a new
tennis court and new fountains in the garden. Karl was also an avid
art collector and acquired numerous paintings and sculptures by
well-known artists. The most important of these acquisitions is the
Triumph of Julius Caesar by Andrea Mantegna. This masterpiece of
Renaissance painting, created around 1485, was bought from the Dukes
of Mantua on behalf of the king in 1629 and brought to Hampton Court
in 1630.
During the English Civil War, the castle was
occupied by Parliamentary troops in 1645. The royal possessions were
listed and then largely sold, and the chapel's ornaments removed by
the radical Puritans. In 1647 Charles I was taken prisoner and taken
to Hampton Court. He was held in honorable custody and enjoyed
numerous liberties. After three months he took the opportunity to
escape, escaping from his bedroom into the garden and with a boat
waiting for him on the Thames. However, his escape ended on the Isle
of Wight, where he was recaptured, taken to London and finally
executed on January 30, 1649.
During the Commonwealth, Lord
Protector Cromwell used the castle as a country and hunting seat
from 1654. He also kept the triumph of Caesar in his private
collection, his daughter Maria married in the royal chapel.
Charles II preferred Windsor Castle as a country residence and
stayed less frequently at Hampton Court. However, he had a new
apartment set up on the south-east corner of the palace for his
mistress Barbara Villiers and his illegitimate children. These
baroque rooms were in complete contrast to the rooms furnished in
the Tudor style.
Under William III. and Maria II, the castle was significantly
rebuilt. Soon after acceding to the throne, they hire Christopher Wren
to remodel and expand the castle. Wren took his cue from
Hardouin-Mansart's design for the new Palace of Versailles, but combined
brick and stone to avoid a monotonous facade. His original plan called
for the entire palace to be demolished, with the exception of the Great
Hall. Since neither the time nor the financial means were available for
this, he was only able to rebuild the south and east wings and the
fountain courtyard in the Baroque style. Work began in May 1689. Since
Wilhelm expected rapid construction progress, construction was rushed.
In December 1689 a large part of the new south wing collapsed again. Two
construction workers were killed and eleven injured. The investigation
into the cause of the accident led to bitter arguments, but it quickly
became clear that the cause lay in the hasty construction work. When
work resumed, it was done more slowly and carefully.
The work was
interrupted by the death of the queen in April 1694 and the building
remained in the shell. Only after the end of the Palatinate War of
Succession in 1697 did the king again have the time and the means for
further construction. After Whitehall Palace burned down in 1698,
Wilhelm accelerated the construction of his new palace. Instead of Wren,
Wilhelm appointed his previous deputy William Talman as site manager,
who finally completed the new building at a lower price than Wren
estimated.
Wren and Talman completely redesigned the castle's
east and south facades. The multifaceted Tudor façade, with numerous
towers and chimneys, was replaced by a large, elegant Baroque façade
which still dominates the castle's garden view today. Magnificent state
rooms were created in the castle, furnished by the best artists in
England at the time, and the gardens were also redesigned as baroque
gardens. Numerous new plants, including many exotic ones from Queen
Maria's collection, enriched the garden. Wilhelm died in 1702 before the
interior was finished. Despite her ailing health, his successor Anne
came to Hampton Court to hunt, but their main residences were Windsor
Castle and Kensington Palace, so further interior work at the castle
came to a standstill. Only George II, as Prince of Wales, showed renewed
interest in the palace and had the state rooms completed by John
Vanbrugh. After his accession to the throne, George II and his wife
Caroline returned to frequenting Hampton Court after 1727, where they
had some of the rooms redecorated. After falling out with his eldest son
Friedrich Ludwig and the death of his wife, the king and his court left
Hampton Court Palace in 1737.
Since George III. did not live in the castle, from the 1760s onwards,
people who were beneficiaries of the crown, people who earned a crown or
land, received free right of residence in the castle. Over time, this
resulted in countless apartments of different sizes and furnishings.
Most apartments were very spacious, if not always luxurious. Among the
residents were Olave Baden-Powell, the widow of the founder of the scout
movement, Grand Duchess Xenia of Russia, the expelled governor William
V, a grandson of George II and the physicist Michael Faraday. In 1838,
Queen Victoria opened the palace's state rooms to visitors. Large parts
of the castle were restored between 1838 and 1851, the great hall, the
gatehouse and the west facade were "re-Tudorized". A second restoration
between 1875 and 1900 took more account of historical models. In 1986, a
fire damaged parts of Hampton Court Palace. The fire broke out in one of
the beneficiaries' apartments above the king's state rooms. The ceiling
construction chosen by Christopher Wren in this part of the palace
prevented the fire from spreading quickly to the rooms below. The fire
was discovered early enough to save the portable works of art from the
king's state rooms. However, the ceiling murals and Grinling Gibbons
decorative carvings nailed high to the wall paneling were damaged by
fire and firefighting water. A carving of gibbons more than two meters
long framing the side of a door burned completely. The repairs took six
years and were not fully completed until 1995, restoring the royal
apartments to their 18th-century appearance.
An informal EU
summit took place in the Great Hall on 27 October 2005 under Tony
Blair's Council Presidency.
Today the castle is owned by Historic
Royal Palaces, an independent non-profit organization that oversees the
unused royal palaces. Some royal beneficiaries still occupy apartments
in the castle, but the royal apartments, the kitchens and much of the
castle and gardens can be visited.
In 2019, Hampton Court Palace
was visited by 1.07 million people.
The massive complex, covering an area of 2.43 hectares, consists of
two castles: the Tudor-style castle to the west and the Baroque castle
to the south-east.
Access to the castle today leads from the
trophy gate built at the end of the 17th century to the west facade of
the castle. 19th-century restorations have restored this two- to
three-story brick facade to a Tudor style with battlements, turrets and
numerous ornate chimneys. A gate tower, the so-called gatehouse, leads
to the main courtyard, which most closely reflects the image of the
castle in the 16th century. Through the opposite gate tower, the
Anne-Boleyn-Tor, you reach the clock courtyard. The courtyard takes its
name from the astronomical clock on the gate tower, built by Nicolas
Oursian in 1540. The north side of the clock courtyard occupies the
great hall, the colonnade on the south side is from Christopher Wren's
remodeling. A neo-Gothic gate from 1732 leads into the fountain
courtyard, which is surrounded by the four-winged castle buildings of
Wren. On the ground floor, an arcade runs around this courtyard. The
piano nobile with the state rooms is on the first floor, while the other
floors contained apartments for courtiers.
The east and south
facades facing the garden are the work of Christopher Wren. The two
wings are four stories high, the central part of the east facade is
accentuated by a triangular pediment with a relief by Caius Gabriel
Cibber, the central part of the south facade by facing with light
Portland stone.
The northern part of the chateau consists of the
kitchens and farm buildings arranged around several smaller courtyards.
Large parts of the interior are preserved or have been restored. The rooms are mainly furnished with paintings and tapestries from the 16th and 17th centuries, which belong to the Royal Collection. The following areas of the castle can be visited today as part of various sightseeing tours:
The lavishly furnished private rooms of Henry VIII were demolished at
the beginning of the 18th century. Nevertheless, numerous rooms from the
Tudor period survive or have been restored, including:
The Royal
Chapel originally built under Cardinal Wolsey. In 1535 it received a
new, magnificently carved and vaulted wooden ceiling. Much of the rest
of the furnishings date from Queen Anne's time and the 19th century. The
murals are by James Thornhill, the altarpiece by Grinling Gibbons.
the great hall, the largest room of the castle. The 32 m long, 12 m wide
and 18 m high hall was built in 1532 and replaced an older, smaller
hall. The hall served as a dining room and as an entrance hall to the
state apartments behind it. It has a magnificent hammer beam vault, the
walls are covered with tapestries depicting the life of Abraham, which
were made around 1540 by the Brussels weaver Willem Kempaneer and were
probably intended to decorate the room from the start.
The great
guardroom once housed the Yeomen of the Guard. The room was altered
under Wren, but the ceiling decorations and tapestries are of Tudor
origin.
Built under Cardinal Wolsey, the Haunted Gallery linked the
Royal Chapel to the rest of the castle. It takes its name from Catherine
Howard, Henry VIII's fifth wife, who broke free from her guards when she
was accused of adultery and about to be taken to the Tower. She wanted
to beg the king for mercy in the chapel, but was caught up in this
corridor and brought back screaming loudly. The king is said to have
continued his devotions unperturbed, the ghost of Katharina is said to
have been running through the corridor moaning loudly ever since. The
gallery is decorated with 16th-century tapestries.
The installation of new kitchens for his court of 600 people was one of Cardinal Wolsey's first building projects. In 1529, for the 1,200-person court of Henry VIII, the kitchens were expanded to over 50 rooms with an area of 3,350 m², which were located around several courtyards. In the 18th century the kitchens were converted into apartments and their restoration was completed in 1991.
On the upper floor of the Clock Court are the Wolsey Apartments, built around 1520, which were probably the cardinal's private quarters. The six rooms were remodeled in the 18th century but retain many period furnishings such as fireplaces, paneling and ceilings. The paintings in the adjacent Renaissance painting gallery are changed from time to time. The inventory includes works from the 16th and 17th centuries, including works by German and Flemish painters such as Lucas Cranach the Elder, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Joos van Cleve and Quentin Massys, as well as Italian masters such as Correggio, Dosso Dossi and Lorenzo Lotto , Franciabigio, Parmigianino and Titian.
The state rooms in the piano nobile of the south wing, built by Wren
towards the end of the 17th century, replaced Henry VIII's state
apartments. After the fire damage suffered in 1986, the rooms were
restored by 1995 and are furnished in the magnificent Baroque style
today, as they were when they were completed in 1700.
The staircase
was painted by Antonio Verrio, the paintings glorify Wilhelm III. The
wrought iron railings are by Jean Tijou.
The walls of the guardroom
are covered with more than 3000 muskets, pistols, swords and other
weapons in symmetrical patterns.
In the Reception Hall are two
tapestries made for Whitehall Palace in 1540 and which have adorned this
room since the 1700s.
In the great reception room hang three
tapestries belonging to the series The Life of Abraham from the great
hall.
The large bedroom was used almost exclusively for court
ceremonies. The room is decorated with rich tapestries, the carvings of
the ceiling and wall friezes are by Grinling Gibbons, the ceiling
painting by Antonio Verrio. He also created the ceiling painting in the
adjoining small bedroom, the actual royal bedroom.
Other rooms
are the dining room, the salon and the cabinet. A back staircase leads
to the ground floor, which contains the king's three-room private
residence. The Orangery, also on the ground floor, now houses the
originals of the statues from the king's private garden, where they have
been replaced by copies. Adjoining the orangery are the king's private
drawing room, private cabinet and private dining room. A portrait of
Wilhelm III hangs in the private salon. and Maria II by Adam Frans van
der Meulen, in the dining room the beauties of Hampton Court, by Godfrey
Kneller painted portraits of the "most dignified ladies-in-waiting in
the service of Her Majesty the Queen".
The Queen's State Rooms are located in the piano nobile of the north
and east wings around the fountain courtyard. The furnishing of the
rooms was interrupted after the death of Queen Maria in 1694, after the
resumption of construction work Wilhelm had the gallery and the study
room completed. Queen Anne had the drawing room completed, the other
rooms remained unfinished. Between 1716 and 1718 the Prince and Princess
of Wales, later George II, and his wife Caroline had the private
apartment and a few other rooms decorated. However, the decoration of
these rooms was not completed until after her accession to the throne in
1727.
The Queen's Staircase was not decorated until 1734 by
William Kent. The west wall is decorated with Mercury Presenting the
Liberal Arts to Apollo and Diana, a 1628 painting by Gerrit van
Honthorst depicting Charles I and his wife as Apollo and Diana and
George Villiers as Mercury.
The adjoining guardroom was probably
decorated by John Vanbrugh. The fireplace, created by Grinling Gibbons,
is framed by stills of bodyguards.
In the reception room there are
three important paintings: Joseph and Potiphar's Wife by Orazio
Gentileschi, Boar Hunt by Frans Snyders and Satyrs and Sleeping Nymphs
by Snyders and Rubens.
Four paintings by Sebastiano Ricci hang in the
dining room, and the marble fireplace is by Grinling Gibbons.
The
drawing room occupies the center of the east facade and offers a view
over the 1 km long Grand Canal and the accompanying avenues. The murals,
created by Antonio Verrio, were only rediscovered in 1899 because George
II had the walls paneled and Mategna's Triumph of Caesar hung in the
room.
The state bed created in 1715 is still in the bedroom. The
ceiling paintings are by James Thornhill and the tapestries are from the
17th century.
The large gallery is furnished with Brussels tapestries
depicting the life story of Alexander the Great.
The audience room,
the cabinet and some smaller rooms also belong to the state rooms.
In the piano nobile around the fountain courtyard are the Georgian
rooms, furnished as they were in 1737, when the king and his court last
used the castle.
The three rooms of the Cumberland Apartments,
which were furnished in 1732 for the Duke of Cumberland, the second
eldest son of George II, face the Clock Court. Beyond is the small
Wolsey Cabinet with a c.1530/1540 ceiling and early 16th century
paintings.
The connecting gallery is adorned with portraits of the
fairies of Windsor, a series of portraits of the most beautiful women at
the court of Charles II made by Peter Lely between 1662 and 1665.
The
cardboard gallery in the south wing was built as a picture gallery to
display Raphael's Deeds of the Apostles. These drawings on cardboard,
which Raphael made around 1516 as models for the Apostle Tapestry, were
acquired by Charles I in 1623. The Apostle Tapestries were intended as
tapestries for the Sistine Chapel. The originals of the cartoons were
given to the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1865; instead, copies drawn
in 1697 hang in the gallery by Henry Cooke.
The Queen's private
apartments are in the east wing. These rooms were originally designed by
Wren for Maria II but were not completed after 1694. In 1716 they were
established for the Prince and Princess of Wales. They were restored in
1995 and appear today as they looked in 1730. In addition to a few
smaller rooms, the private apartment includes the private salon, the
private bedroom, the dressing room and bathroom, the dining room and the
covered prayer room. Some of the rooms are laid out with Persian carpets
from the 16th and 17th centuries, and the furnishings include paintings,
among other things. by Christoph Schwartz, Willem van de Velde the Elder
and the Younger, and portrait paintings by Joseph Highmore, Godfrey
Kneller and Enoch Seeman.
Hampton Court once had one of the most magnificent gardens in all of
Europe. There was probably a garden for Cardinal Wolsey on the site of
today's fountain courtyard. Henry VIII had a garden laid out in front of
the southern façade. Starting in 1661, Andre Mollet laid out the large
canal for Charles II. Parallel to the baroque expansion of the palace by
Christopher Wren, the gardens were laid out according to the French
model.
Today the castle is surrounded by a 24-hectare garden
divided into three areas:
The Privy Garden, south of the palace,
was restored in 1995 as a formally laid out baroque garden to its 1702
appearance. It consists of four broderie parterres set around a circular
pond and was originally laid out in 1689 by Henry Wise. At the southern
tip, an ornate wrought-iron fence by Jean Tijou runs along the winding
bank of the Thames. To the west of the Privy Garden is a Tudor style
knot garden laid out in 1924 and the Pond Garden made up of flower beds.
The Lower Orangery is now used as an exhibition space for Mantegna's The
Triumph of Caesar. Next to the orangery is The great Vine planted in
1769 by Lancelot Capability Brown in a greenhouse. With a circumference
of 4 m and branches up to 36.5 m long, the vine is the largest vine in
the world. On the banks of the Thames is the Banqueting House, an
intimate dining room built in 1700 and painted on the inside by Antonio
Verrio.
Wilhelm III left the eastern garden. designed by Daniel Marot
as a semicircular fountain garden with twelve fountains, boxwood borders
and statues. The fountains, flower beds and statues were removed again
from 1707 under Queen Anne, and from 1710 the garden was bordered by
semi-circular canals. The garden finally took on its current form in the
19th century, with lawns and trimmed yews and holly trees. At the
northern end of the Breiter Weg, which runs along the palace façade, is
the tennis court, which was laid out around 1620 and is still used as a
sports facility today.
In Tudor times, north of the castle was the
large orchard and the tournament ground, which had five towers for
spectators. William III Henry Wise had the north garden laid out as a
wilderness with high trimmed hedges from 1690 onwards. The famous
trapezoidal maze is the only remaining part of this garden complex.
Around 800 m of winding paths lead through the approximately 1350 m²
maze through two meter high yew hedges. The rest of the garden is now a
meadow with trees. The former tournament ground is now divided into
smaller gardens, one of the spectator towers is still preserved and is
located next to the garden restaurant.
To the east of the
gardens, the 304-hectare Home Park extends in a loop of the Thames.
Giles Daubeney had a 120-hectare deer park set up. A herd of fallow
deer, numbering around 270 animals, lives in the park. Several avenues
and the approximately 1 km long large canal lead through the park. North
of the wildlife park is Bushy Park.
In early July, the park has
hosted the week-long Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, the largest
annual flower show in the world, annually since 1990, hosted by the
Royal Horticultural Society.
In addition to the ghost of Catherine Howard, legend has it that
there are other ghosts in the castle, including those of Sibell Penn,
Edward VI's nanny. and by Jane Seymour.
At the 2012 Summer
Olympics, the palace was the start and finish point for the individual
time trial of the road cycling events.