What a day today was!
Hampton Court Palace is just beyond words. Cardinal Wolsey certainly did at least one thing absolutely brilliantly in his somewhat-chequered career. I'm not sure where the beauty in this place lies, I mean there's plenty of red brick buildings in modern day suburbia, but somehow this place stands in a league all of its own.
What made the day really extra special, was that Hampton Court is closed today, to everyone else except our little group, so we had the run of the place without crowds or tourists or multiple guides all talking at once and it made everything feel so atmospheric. The place is enormous for a start. So many of the Tudor Palaces are gone - Nonesuch, Greenwich, so many - that it blows my mind to see just how much of Hampton Court is still here and is original from Wolsey and Henry's time.
Touching the bricks and feeling 500 years just fall away...
We went up into the Minstrel's gallery and looked down over The Great Gallery (which isn't open to the Public, so we were very lucky - and it's incredible to imagine the sight of all the Lords and Ladies below!)
Then we went down into The Great Gallery and saw it as Henry would have seen it.
The Great Gallery is breathtaking - and holds tapestries made with cloth of gold. Five of the six of them are believed to be original and date back over 500 years. Worth more than the Crown Jewels in their day and incredibly rare. Very few people were rich enough to own a single tapestry like this, let alone 6 of them. When they were made, they would have been mega-colourful and super-shiny. It's all real gold woven into fabric. We can only imagine how bright they would have been!
Sheila (our Palace guide for the Tour) told us a multitude of spooky ghost stories and not a small amount of history that - well, let's just say, has no historical basis in fact - and it was hilarious to watch our two Historian Tour Guides trying with every fibre of their beings not to explode listening to her. There was significant fact-checking when we got back on the bus! Sheila is much beloved by all of us for her hilariously well-intentioned bullshittery and her Legend shall live on in Tour history.
When it comes down to it though, today I have walked the grounds that Thomas Wolsey, Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour and a hundred other Tudor Nobles and Courtiers that we know and hear about and feel in our souls have walked. I have stood on the spots where their feet have been, I have run my hands down wooden stair rails that their hands have swept over and I have been and touched and hugged the stone that has seen them all. I have seen the Astronomical clock that was such a Masterpiece of technology and advancement and I have stood in the room where both Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour gave birth to their children and where Jane died 3 days after Edward VI was born. She was IN that room - and I must say, according to Sheila, she still is on some occasions! Again, the Public don't get into this room, but I have been there, stood at the window, looked out to the Courtyard just as Anne and Jane and all their Ladies in Waiting have done and admired the Astronomical clock with the same awe they would have. It's all so visceral.
Best. Day. Ever.
Maddy, I thought of you when I looked at the chimneys! Major design innovation in the 1500s!
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