Hampton Court Palace- Saturday

Saturday was a day trip to Hampton Court, which is located about 40 minutes outside of London in Surrey. We took the Tube to Waterloo station, and then bought tickets on a train out to Surrey.

Hampton Court is most famous for being one of the favorite residences of Henry VIII. It was built by his chief adviser, Cardinal Wolsey, and was such a grand residence that it became even more opulent than any of Henry's own palaces. When the Cardinal realized how the King coveted the palace, he gave it to Henry. Kind of a dubious gift, I guess, since technically the king owned everything anyway.












Though I'm not much of a student of architecture, Hampton Court is very fascinating because of the way that two vastly different architectural styles were merged. After the Glorious Revolution in the 17th Century (when the Catholic king James II was replaced by William and Mary) the new monarchs decided to turn Hampton Court, which was crumbling with disuse, into a Versailles-like palace. They tore down half of the old Tudor-style building, and built a new addition to the palace in a Greek-revival style. So one half of the palace is in old red brick, and the other half is in white stone with colonnades and pillars.

There are four main sections to the palace now: the old Tudor section, the King's Apartments (belonging to William III aka "William of Orange"), the Queen's Apartments (belonging to his wife, Queen Mary II), and the Georgian Apartments (belonging to King George II and his family). I have many, many books about the Tudors, but my knowledge of the history after 1600 is kind of spotty, so I learned a great deal about the later Stuarts and the Hanovers.

Unfortunately we spent so much time taking the different tours of the palace, that by the time we made it outside to the gardens they had closed the maze. Hampton Court has a world-famous hedge maze, so it was a little disappointing to have missed it. Another disappointment is that all of the Royal palaces that have some connection with Henry VIII are preparing exhibits to commemorate the 500th anniversary of his reign... and most of those exhibits open in April/May.

~Lizzie~