Wellbeing Get Together – Hampton Court Palace

Our Wellbeing Get Together for June was a visit to Hampton Court Palace including a tour of the Tudor Palace.

For an historic building a lot of care and thought has been given to making the buildings accessible. There is a good deal of information available on the website to help with planning your visit. This includes information on travel to the site, access and sensory guides and visual stories, information about toilets, cafes and seating as well as quieter times to visit and details about specific tours such as the BSL led tour. You can find this information on the following link: Accessibility | Hampton Court Palace | Historic Royal Palaces

We met our tour guide outside of the Seymour Gate which is currently serving as the entrance to the palace whilst maintenance works are going on at the main entrance. Although we then did go over to the main entrance for a photo and some information about the history of the palace.

The original Tudor Hampton Court Palace was begun by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in the early 16^th century. As Henry’s Lord Chancellor he wanted to create a grand building where he could host not only the King and the royal court, but also monarchs from across Europe. However, he fell from favour when he failed to secure Henry’s divorce from his first wife Catherine of Aragon and Henry took Hampton Court for himself. By the 1530s, Henry VIII’s Hampton Court was a palace, a hotel, a theatre and a vast leisure complex. The King used it to demonstrate magnificence and power in every possible way, through lavish banquets, extravagant court life and fabulously expensive art.

We returned to Seymour gate, showed our tickets and entered a small courtyard Master Carpenter’s Court which we learnt was where any deliveries to the palace would have been made. Rather confusingly for our VI members, there was a soundtrack playing of horses hoofbeats and rumbling carriage wheels! From here we entered the kitchens where 200 staff would prepare over 800 meals a day for the courtiers accompanying the King. Huge fires burned through thousands of logs and enormous spits would have roasted all sorts of meat and fowl!

From here we went to Base Court, where we would have arrived if the main entrance was open. This is the largest of the courtyards at the palace and designed to impress and demonstrate the King’s great wealth. Here there were 30 suites of lodging used for the grandest visitors. Then it was on to Clock Court, another large court named for the astronomical clock installed in 1540 on the gatehouse to the court. This 15ft diameter clock is still functioning today and would have displayed the minute, hour, month, day of the month, 12 signs of the zodiac, position of the sun, phases of the moon as well as high water at London Bridge!

Here, our group separated with those that were able walking up the stairs to the Great Hall, whilst the wheelchair users travelled up via the lift. We met again in the magnificent hall, centrepiece of the Tudor palace and designed to overwhelm visitors. It was decorated in honour of Anne Boleyn, Henry’s 2^nd wife although their intertwined initials were taken down and the carved falcon badges painted black after her execution. The we went through to the Great Watching Chamber which led to the King and Queen’s private apartments, where only those high in favour were allowed to pass. Here the courtiers waited for news of Jane Seymour, Henry’s 3^rd wife who after a long labour gave birth to the longed-for son and heir, Edward. Sadly, she was to die just 12 days later.

We followed the processional route that Henry took several times a day to visit the chapel for prayers and services. The corridors would be lined with courtiers asking for favours as he walked by. Then into the Chapel Royal and the King and Queen’s private pew and a view of the lavishly decorated blue and gold vaulted ceiling. It was here that Henry’s ‘precious jewel’, his son Edward, was christened in October 1537 in one of the most lavish christenings ever staged.

Our tour ended by descending the (or back in the lift for our wheelchair users!) and entering the Fountain Court which is in the baroque part of the palace. When William III and Mary II took the throne they commissioned Sir Christopher Wren to build an elegant new palace. Wren scrapped his original plan to demolish the whole palace and instead created this spectacular court leaving much of the Tudor palace intact. Later, Georgian kings and princes occupied the splendid interiors until 1737 when George II no longer wanted to use Hampton Court and the palace was quickly filled with “grace and favour” residents. Many of them were aristocratic widows in straitened circumstances, who were offered free accommodation in return for their husbands’ services to the monarch.

The various apartments, although extremely grand, not always the most comfortable places to live. Residents regularly complained that the palace was ‘perishingly cold’ and damp, and some had no access to hot water!

Everyone found the tour very interesting and informative but by now we were definitely ready for refreshments! We thanked our guide and headed for the Tiltyard café. Although access was step free part of the route was on gravel so a little tricky for wheelchair users, but manageable. There was a good selection of food and drinks on offer and lots to chat about before we headed home tired but happy!

If you’d like to join in with future Wellbeing events please get in touch with Katy or Guy!

Katy – Phone/SMS: 07434 865062         Email: katy.hubbard@surreycoalition.org.uk

Guy – Phone/SMS: 07305 009869          Email: guy.hill@surreycoalition.org.uk