Day 33 – Hampton Court Palace

Today was devoted to “ticking another box” by visiting the renowned Hampton Court Palace, another of London’s major attraction that I have failed to get to previously. I walked to Clapham South and caught the tube into Waterloo station from which the train to Hampton Court took just 30 minutes.

Ceiling of the Great Hall

So it came to pass that I started my visit to the magnificent Hampton Court Palace just after 11:00am. The palace is in two parts – the original Tudor palace that was home to Henry VIII in the early 1500s and the baroque additions built at the behest of William III in the early 1700s. The entry fee included an audio tour guide, so that you can tour the palace at your own pace and view the separate tour components in whatever order you wish.

There are a number of separate themed tours of which I did “Henry VIII’s Apartments”, “Young Henry VIII’s Story”, “Henry VIII’s Kitchens”, “William III’s Apartments” and “Mary II’s Apartments”. In so doing you get to learn interesting things about such topics as the mechanics of housing and feeding the inhabitants of a medieval palace, and the way the royal court interacted with the general population. Plus of course the history of the individual monarchs involved.

One of the Pond Gardens

Next it was time to tour the sumptuous gardens surrounding the palace. I checked out the Knot Garden, the Pond Gardens, the Privy Garden, the Great Fountain Garden, the Wilderness and the Tiltyard – which all had slightly different themes but were all very well laid out and maintained. Some are more ornamental than others.

I eventually found myself at the famous Hampton Court Maze and decided I might as well try it out. Finding my way to the middle wasn’t all that hard as it turned out, but a misunderstanding on my part saw me spending longer than necessary getting out again. I thought I was supposed to find my way to an exit that was separate to the entrance where I started. Thus I wasted about 15 minutes looking for this mythical exit before checking with the guy back at the entrance to find that I was on a fool’s errand. (Quite appropriate I am sure some of you are thinking!). Anyway, that was pretty much the end of my tour of the Hampton Court Palace and Gardens, which took me about five hours all up.

I had hoped to arrange an after work meeting with another London based friend, but my mobile was out of battery and the only two public phones I could find were not exactly co-operative. One wouldn’t accept my money, the other happily accepted (and kept) it but wouldn’t let me make a call. I guess public phones are the same the world over. So I just returned to base, via Clapham Junction and Wandsworth Common.

I had hopes of going out again later to take some night time photos of the London landscape, but it started to rain shortly after I made it “home”, so that idea will have to wait for another evening.