Hampton Court Palace

Hampton Court was built by the Archbishop of York and Chief Minister Thomas Wolsey during the reign of Henry VIII. Wolsey spent lavishly to build the finest palace in England at Hampton Court which he was later forced to give to Henry as he began to fall from favor. Henry VIII’s third wife Jane Seymour gave birth to the future King Edward VI at Hampton in 1537 and died there 12 days later. It’s said that her ghost haunts the staircase at Hampton. After Henry VIII’s 5th wife, Catherine Howard's past came to light she was arrested in 1542 at Hampton. She escaped one night and ran down the Long Gallery on her way to Henry to plead to him to save her life but before she got to him she was caught by the guards and dragged away. She was later hung. It's said that sometimes you can still hear her screaming down the Long Gallery. Hampton Court is also the site of the world-famous Hedge Maze. It was planted in 1689 for William III of Orange and covers a third of an acre and has a half mile of paths. We went in the maze and it took us like 20 minutes to find our way out and the whole time we pretended we were in the Triwizard Tournament in the Harry Potter books, lol. We took different tours of the Palace through audio head sets. I didn’t realize how big the kitchen was. It wasn’t just one really big room but like 30 rooms. You had rooms were the food came in and was stored. You had rooms were just fish was stored. Fresh meat was brought in and so there was a butcher’s room, also a room where this stew with the bones and scrapes of meat was constantly boiling. You had rooms that stored the silver, baked the deserts, and prepared the food. Also there was a room with a huge fire place where they would cook pigs over the fire. Then they had rooms where the food was all brought together and gotten ready to be taken to the dinning room. The servants that brought the food up had to line up in the order that the food was to be placed on the table and then bring the food out. There were so many people, that is lords and knights, to feed that there had to be two separate dinner shifts. The King and queen and all the really important people ate in another room. We also saw the living spaces of the king and queen. Right now they are working on a restoration project to restore the Queens actual bed!!! The some of the gardens of Hampton were built after Henry VIII's time and were built to resemble the gardens at Versailles Palace in France. At one point along one of the tours one of the people that worked there told us a story about the Versailles gardens. The French King really liked hunting but he didn't think hunting animals was good enough. So on Sundays he would round up 18-20 children from off the street and dress them up in bird costumes. He would then shoot them out of a cannon and then try and shoot them with his gun. Some he would tell to run around the gardens and he would hunt them down!!! By the way he was crazy!! We also saw the oldest and largest grape vine in the world. For lunch we ate at the cafe that is inside Hampton court. It was kind of expensive but the panini I got was soooooo good. Anyway Hampton court was definitely worth seeing and I suggest to anyone going to London to go and see it.


A swan in the Hampton court Gardens.

View of Hampton court from the Kings Gardens.

The Kings Gardens.

Another picture of Hampton court and the Kings gardens

One of the Spiral staircases
Kelsie, Sara and Megan in front of the Gardens.
The back of Hampton Court a view from the Gardens.
View of the Gardens from one of the upper floors of Hampton court.
The pond in the gardens with swans.

This is the first court yard (top)

This is the entrance to Hampton Court(Above)

(left) this is one of the rooms where food was made.

The fire place where the pigs were cooked. I thought it was neat how you cold see the black from where the fire had burnt the wall. (above)

(left) This is one of the court yards inside of Hampton.