Hi all and welcome to another episode of the Findlater's Travel the world.
This blog we decided to do Hampton Court Palace, I (Mercedes) have been to this palace a few times before (as a kid, with friends etc.) but Kyran had not been and it seemed to be a sore point that I had been here without him. So I finally told him that I would take him, especially as we have just arrived back from visiting the Palace of Versailles and there are so many architectural similarities between the two palaces. Not that you wouldn't expect a lot of similarities between Versailles and a lot of other palaces as it is said Versailles was that Palace that all other palaces were modelled on.
Below: You can see in the background it isn't near as pretty as Versailles but we will get into why later.
Lets jump right into this week's Blog!
Hampton Court Palace
This Palace was was built for/by Cardinal Wolsey, who was a favourite of King Henry VIII.
As the palace started to take shape it was looking very grand, so much so that Wolsey knowing that the King (Henry VIII) was a jealous man had to start saying that he was actually building the Palace for the King - rather then for himself.
In the end Wolsey fell out of favour with the King and the King took the Palace for himself anyway.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_Court_Palace)
The Palace was built out of red brick as it was suppose to be the new "wonder material" of the time which was also then painted with black paint to make the diamond pattern you see below.
One documentary that I watched seemed to suggest that the red bricks were painted red on top of already being red, the black diamond shapes were painted and then the grout in between the bricks was painted white.
So essentially the entire wall was painted! It would have been very vibrant and very interesting to look at indeed.
Ok, so lets get into the fun stories about this Palace. Above you see a photo of a fountain with figurines, you also might notice that Kyran seems keen to be drinking from this fountain!
This was a wine fountain! To be more specific it was a red wine fountain!
This is something that was set up at special times and you were allowed to drink as much wine as you liked. This leads me to the second photo below where there is a figurine either about to throw up or is currently doing so (I thought that I would get inline to stare at the pavement too!).
Below is a photo that I stole from the internet of a painting that shows the wine fountain in use including the sick guy in the far right side of the temporary battle castle that was set up for the King.
Below: The Initials of Anne Boleyn and King Henry the VIII located in the great Hall.
It seemed to be a thing that once you got married like a love-struck teenager on a note pad, you went about putting all sorts of love symbols in your palace.
It also turns out that when you send your beloved wife to have her head removed from her shoulders that you should also then go about removing all the love symbols from your palace once more. This image below is one that Kyran took and I digitally altered so that you can see it better but this is one of the initials that was missed when they were removing all evidence of Anne Boleyn. There is an "A" and "H" together.
Another thing that is noteworthy in the great hall is the little wooden figurines that were put up in the eves as a sort of warning, to stop gossip in the court, thus they are called eavesdroppers.
So for your next family get together you know what you need to do! Get a few freaky little statues and stand them around the room to look at the guests so no one can gossip about you while you duck off to the toilet!
Below: An image of the roof of the great hall and I have digitally altered the image so that the little Eavesdroppers might be a little more apparent to you the reader.
I guess I should say a little more about the palace itself. As I previously mentioned about Cardinal Wolsey and King Henry the VIII we should probably move on to William III and Mary II.
William III and Mary II were married and they were cousins!
William was a dutch prince and Mary an English Princess however they ruled as King and Queen jointly (so one was not more powerful then the other).
William was Protestant and spent a bit of time fighting the Catholic French King Louis XIV (if you remember from our last blog he was the one who built Versailles).
So this is where we get back to Hampton Court Palace.
William III seemed to want King Louis dead, but on the other hand he thought "That's a nice Palace you have there! (referring to Versailles) I want one like it"
So it was decided that they should start pulling down the existing Hampton court palace and start building a new fancy one like the French have.
Fortunately or maybe unfortunately, everyone died before the full plan for the palace was fully carried out. So there are parts that are older and other parts that are newer.
Above: The architectural boarders where the two types of palace styles meet.
Below Left: A photo from Last weeks blog that was take at the Palace of Versailles
Below Right: The obvious copy and almost paste of the Versailles Grand Canal to Hampton Court.
Above Left: A photo from last week at the Palace of Versailles of the fancy gardens
Above Right: A photo of Hampton Court's fancy gardens
So you can see from the above photos there are a lot of similarities, and not just because that was the era and that was the fashion but they were deliberately imitated.
Lets move on to what the palace is like on the inside and have a look.
Below: Some sort of a decorative armoury, all the shapes and patterns are made of guns and swords and other murderous instruments.
Above Right: is the Orangery, that is a sort of green house where the king would keep his oranges over winter so they wouldn't freeze and die!
Left: One of the statues in the Orangery, of a snake biting a woman's nipple.
What gets me though is the expression on her face like " Oh man it bit me AGAIN!"
Below: Some of the rooms in the Kings actual living area.
As the King was required to do everything publicly there were other grander rooms that the king performed all his public activities in ie. Shaving, getting ready for bed, eating, etc.
And then there were the following smaller less regal rooms with lower ceilings. hidden out the back away from the public.
This is the part of the blog where I have a confession to make:
This blog was actually published and then somehow corrupted and all that I had written after this disappeared.
So writing in extreme retrospect I will attempt to remember the rest of the palace one year later.
Below is a photo of the Hampton Court Astronomical Clock!
The clock was installed at Hampton court palace in 1540 on the inner side of the gatehouse(visible from the courtyard)
The clock is 15 feet (4.6 m) in diameter with three separate copper dials revolving at different speeds and displays the following information:
- Hour
- Month
- Day of month
- Position of the sun in the ecliptic
- Twelve signs of the zodiac
- Number of days elapsed since the beginning of the year
- Phases of the moon
- Age of the moon in days
- Hour when the moon crosses the meridian and thus high water at London Bridge.
The latter information was of great importance to those visiting this Thames-side palace from London, as the preferred method of transport at the time was by barge, and at low water London Bridge created dangerous rapids.
The clock was restored in 1711 but in 1831 the astronomical dial were removed, and the mechanism was replaced with that from a clock dating from 1799 from St James's Palace.
In 1879 the astronomical dial was found, and Gillett & Bland manufactured a new clock movement.
The clock was fully restored in 2007 and 2008 by the Cumbria Clock Company in Dacre in time for the 500th anniversary of the accession of King Henry VIII.
For more information: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_Court_astronomical_clock
Speaking of Anniversaries as I sit here writing the ending to this blog on the 25th of
January 2019 I have had a notification pop up to let me know that today is the Anniversary
of the second wedding of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn (The first wedding was in private)
January 2019 I have had a notification pop up to let me know that today is the Anniversary
of the second wedding of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn (The first wedding was in private)
Below: Us just hanging out in the palace.
But the better point I should make here is that you may notice that we are wearing fancy looking green robes.
This was actually a cool optional feature to the palace visit. When you go to pick up your audio guides they had a rack of these King Henry VIII era robes that you could take and wear as you walked around the palace.
On a practical note it was a cold day and we were under-dressed it would seem, so the robes kept us warm as we walked around the grounds.
I would also like to take this opportunity to add a retrospective comment.
As you may or may not know I have been getting into "period" clothing from the Victorian times forward. I actually am not adhering to any particular era but am picking the bits and pieces that I like from each fashion style.
The point I would like to make here is that I have no idea how the English people went from 15 layers of clothing (I may be exaggerating) to a mini skirt and a tank top in the middle of winter.
I have always been a cold person, but since I have started wearing the corset, petticoats, neckerchiefs etc. I have noticed that I am so nice and warm and toasty and that the cold doesn't bother me at all.
Back to the Palace though and I can appreciate the clothing that they wore keeping in mind the cold temperatures of the palace in the winters. There were fires I know, but not everywhere!
Here are some more rooms and features that we encountered throughout the palace.
Above: A photos of the wine cellar, look at the size of these barrels!!
Well this is where I start to forget what else we got up to a year ago. But the following photo prompts me to remember mention the Hampton Court Maze.
This is something that I remember from when I was 12 and we came to visit the palace.
I also remember that we were here in the summer and there were activities for the children and we (my brother and sister) ended up participating in 'Fool School' where I remember that they had stilts for the kids to learn to walk on.
Us country hillbilly kids just picked it up straight away and made all the other kids look like fools hehehe.
Back to the Maze...
I remember it being bigger but that is probably because I was much smaller. It was the first time I had seen a hedge maze as a 12 year old kid, so it was pivotal that I take Kyran to see the maze. I think it was his first time too!
Below: So here we are we found our way into the centre of the maze where there is a little information and frame that you can take a photo in!
I must say that my motivation for dredging up this corrupted blog and finishing it is because I have recently had the opportunity to mention Hampton Court Palace in one of my upcoming blogs and I wanted to have this one to refer back to.
So I hope that you have enjoyed reading it and keep an eye out for my next blogs!
- Karl Pilkington -
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