It has been seen that Hampton Court Palace has associations—often peculiar and intimate associations—with our monarchs for close upon three hundred years. In the first two chief courts, in the Great Hall, the kitchens, the old cloisters, and the courts along the north side of the building, it is not a difficult effort of the imagination that is required to make us see it as it was in the brightly-attired days of Tudor splendour and lavishness; to make us realize the arrival in one of the courts of some noble company, when the great Cardinal was entertaining and when King Henry was setting forth hunting; to make us realize the hurrying of the cooks and their minions in the corridors and cloisters about the great kitchens, the knots of idlers and retainers in the lesser courts. In the later portions of the Palace, the Fountain Court and the State Chambers, we may, “with the mind’s eye”, see something of the more formal brightness of a later day, may see the beaux and beauties of the early eighteenth century promenading or “taking tea” with “proud Anna whom three realms obey”.

The casual visitor to Hampton Court probably carries away two or three definite impressions of the place, of a medley of decorated chimneystacks, of warm red brick, of cool quadrangles, of broad lawns and blazing flower beds, of an outlook over a boat-dotted river, of galleries filled with a bewildering succession of old paintings, of tapestried walls—and of the whole set amid stretching tree-grown levels. It is, however, necessary to know the place closely to appreciate it fully—it grows upon one, as the saying is; we should have seen the homely court of the Master Carpenter as well as the stately Fountain Court, the sculptures in the gardens as well as the encyclopÆdic clock, the kitchens as well as the picture galleries, to have lingered about the Wilderness in the spring as well as to have seen the Broad Walk in the blaze of summer, to have visited in some of the residences as well as to have passed through the public galleries, to have been about it at all seasons and not merely to have scampered through it as the central incident in a half-day’s excursion. It is, indeed, properly a place for restful enjoyment rather than for hurried sightseeing; though a hurried glimpse may well prove a provocation to further visits and more leisurely inspection.

FOUNTAIN COURT

Perhaps in beginning a ramble about the Palace and its grounds it may be assumed that most people arrive by railway at the station which, though it is in East Molesey at the Surrey end of the bridge, takes its name from the palace on the Middlesex bank. This means that they enter it—as also do those who journey from London by tramcar—at the Trophy Gate, and have before them at once, at the end of a broad gravel walk, the Outer Court and the rich red-brick medley of the Tudor buildings, to which the eye is led by the severely plain row of low barracks on the left, and a row of fine elms along the towing path on the right. Here, at the west front, the recently-cleared moat at once attracts attention. Until within the past year or two the gravel forecourt extended right up to the palace walls, but excavation revealed that the course of the moat, and the very walls of the moat, and the old bridge approach to the Gatehouse were still plainly traceable. The rubbish with which long since the moat had been filled—possibly when William the Third made his alterations to the Palace, or perhaps even earlier—was cleared away, the brick sides revealed, the bottom of the moat neatly turfed over, and a parapet with shield-bearing heraldical beasts erected on either side. These heraldical beasts, it must be admitted—whether a restoration in accordance with an old design or not—tend to spoil the approach to the Great Gatehouse, for the whole would have gained in dignity had they been omitted and the plain low castellated wall remained unadorned. The similar banner-bearing heraldical beasts along the roof of the Great Hall look far better on the skyline—but their fellows on the eyeline below mar the dignity of the approach considerably.

The beautiful red brickwork, the various castellated turrets, and the clusters of decorated chimneys, with the quaintly carven beasts seemingly toboganning down the gables of the wings, together form a fine example of Tudor architecture, though the appearance would have been still better had the Gatehouse when restored in the eighteenth century been kept to its original proportions, and had the leaden cupolas not been removed from the many turrets. Two or three of those turrets that remain in other parts of the buildings retain their cupolas, to indicate how fine must have been the whole effect before any had been removed. In the wall of either tower of the gateway is to be seen a terra-cotta medallion portrait of one of the CÆsars, others of which will be noticed in the succeeding courts.

The wing to the right as we front the Gatehouse is the south-west wing and is worthy of special mention before entering the buildings, for there one of Hampton Court’s ghosts has been given to manifesting itself. This is the ghost of Mistress Penn who was nurse to Edward the Sixth. An elaborate and circumstantial story tells of the sound being heard of a ghostly spinning-wheel, and when search was made by the officials a small sealed-up chamber was revealed, containing nothing but a spinning-wheel and a chair!

Entering through the Great Gatehouse—where, though the Palace is no longer used as a residence by the royal family, a sentry is always on guard—we reach the First Green Court or Base Court—a peaceful quadrangle surrounded by low red buildings with the western end of the Great Hall fronting us to the left. This, the only turfed “quad”, is the largest of them all. In the surrounding rooms are supposed to have been many of the chambers which Wolsey allotted to his guests when they came in such numbers as are indicated in the passage already quoted from Master George Cavendish. Opposite us is the end of the Great Hall to the left, and directly in front is the clock gatehouse on either turret of which is to be observed one of those terra-cotta plaques of the Roman Emperors which were at one time thought to have been the work of Della Robbia, and to have been presented to Wolsey when he was building, but which Mr. Law has shown to be the work of Joannes Maiano and to have been ordered by the Cardinal. This gate is known as Anne Boleyn’s Gateway, in the groined ceiling (restored) of which as we pass beneath are to be noticed around a central Tudor rose the monograms of that unhappy Queen, Henry the Eighth, and “T.C.” repeated alternately with them—the last-mentioned initials may well puzzle the visitor who does not know that they stand for Thomas Cardinal, a designation which Wolsey was fond of employing.

A broad flight of steps to the left leads upwards from Anne Boleyn’s Gateway to the Great Hall, but before proceeding thither most visitors will wish to look into the Clock Court beyond. In this Court we get the greatest clashing of the two periods to which the Palace as we know it to-day belongs. On the left, or north side, is the buttressed wall of the Great Hall with above the pinnacles surmounted by the heraldical beasts already referred to; while on the right is a colonnade masking the Tudor buildings on that side—Wolsey’s own apartments—in most incongruous fashion. Beneath that colonnade is the entrance to the King’s Grand Staircase and so to the State Rooms now known as the Picture Galleries. Looking back at the gateway through which we have come we see the wonderful clock—a veritable horological encyclopÆdia—which, after lying long neglected, was in the latter part of last century restored to its original position and set going. It was first put up in 1540 and is a remarkable survival from that time—though everything but the dial has been renewed—seeing that we can now ascertain from it, according to Mr. Ernest Law—though but few visitors are likely to seek to obtain all this information from it—“the hour, the month, the day of the month, the position of the sun in the ecliptic, the number of days since the beginning of the year, the phase of the moon, its age in days, the hour of the day at which it souths (that is crosses the meridian), and thence the time of highwater at London Bridge”. It may be said that the clock needs a deal of learning, and those who merely wish to know the time of day can find it more expeditiously by consulting the conventional dial that fronts on the Base Court.

Two interesting matters connected with the astronomical clock are worthy of passing mention—one is that its bell which strikes the hours is probably the oldest thing about the Palace, for it goes back to some years before Wolsey acquired the manor, and is mentioned among the properties at the place where he purchased it; and the other is that ever since the clock struck the hour at which Anne of Denmark, the Queen of James the First, passed away in 1619 it is said to have stopped whenever an old resident of the Palace has died. Those curious in such matters declare, according to the historian of the Palace, that there have been many coincidences in support of this superstition. Perhaps the custom grew up of stopping the clock on the occasion of a death. Beneath the dial is to be seen an elaborate piece of relief sculpture in terra-cotta representing the coat of arms of Wolsey supported by plump cherubs and surmounted by the Cardinal’s hat, the monogram “T.W.”, and the date 1525—presumably the date of the completion of this gateway.

On the farther side of the Clock Court is the entrance to the Queen’s Staircase, on passing through the hall at the foot of which we come to the Chapel and the Fountain Court. At the entrance are two more of the terra-cotta plaques to which reference has already been made.

THE GREAT HALL

Turning back for a time to Anne Boleyn’s Gateway we may follow the steps up to the Great Hall, and entering from beneath the Minstrels’ Gallery at a doorway through an elaborately carven screen, we see at once before us one of the finest and most impressive of Tudor halls—very similar to but not quite so large as that of Christ Church at Oxford. Whether we look up towards the dais as we enter from under the Minstrels’ Gallery, or whether standing on the dais—raised but a few inches from the general level of the hall—we look back towards the Minstrels’ Gallery and the blue west window above it—it is a grand and pleasing view that we get. The tapestried walls, the high windows, and the fine Perpendicular hammer-beam roof together form a magnificent and pleasing whole, one of the noblest halls of its period that the country has to show. The tapestries, in which are depicted incidents in the life of Abraham—though time has dimmed somewhat the splendour of their colouring—are yet remarkable links with Tudor times, for they were purchased by Henry the Eighth and have remained at Hampton Court ever since the period of their acquisition. Though much restoration was done in the middle of last century the general character of the whole was not interfered with. Then it was that the stained glass was put in—to replace that which had presumably been destroyed during the times “when civil dudgeon first grew high and men fell out they knew not why”—and we may well be grateful that the taste displayed in doing so was on the whole so well displayed, though the garish blue of the western window above the Minstrels’ Gallery is perhaps an exception to that taste. The great oriel window at the southern end of the dais, with the beautiful groining above cannot fail to attract attention, and looking back from the dais down the Hall we may notice the elaboration and richness of the magnificent roof, which is acknowledged to be probably the most splendid roof of the kind ever erected in England.

Though we see the Hall to-day with but a few sightseers in it, it needs no great effort of imagination to repeople it with figures of the past; to recall the time when it was a centre of Tudor revellings, or when King James sat in his chair by the great oriel or Bay Window and saw the “goddesses” descend from the “heaven” above the Minstrels’ Gallery to carry on their masquings below. At the farther end of the dais is a door, now covered over, leading to the antechamber known as the Horn Room.

A doorway in the eastern end of the Hall from the centre of the dais gives into the Great Watching Chamber which runs at right angles to it. This also is one of Henry the Eighth’s contributions to the Palace, and with its richly ornamented roof, its wonderfully elaborate old tapestries may be regarded as one of the most fascinating and interesting parts of it. Indeed, if we except the Great Hall itself, this is the most remarkable part of the Tudor edifice that remains. According to an old engraving it was in this chamber that Cardinal Wolsey entertained the French ambassadors at the sumptuous banquet referred to earlier.

The tapestries here, representing the Triumphs of Renown, Time, and Fate, are particularly interesting as they form part of a series bought by Cardinal Wolsey in 1523 and have been hanging at Hampton Court for close upon four hundred years. They are old Flemish work, and should be supplemented by three others if the set were complete. These wonderful examples of ancient “art needlework” are the more interesting from the fact of their being links with the original Palace. It should be remembered to Cromwell’s credit that, though they were duly valued as among the available Crown assets, he refused to permit of their removal, and thus we have in them one of the most notable links with the gorgeous past of Hampton Court. At the farther end of the Great Watching Chamber is a small room—the Horn Room—with stairs leading down to the cloisters and kitchens, and with the closed doorway giving on to the northern end of the dais in the Great Hall.

Before passing on into the Orange part of the buildings, the State Rooms and Picture Galleries, we may retrace our steps to the outer court, at the north side of which, passing under an archway, we go through the delightful series of courts along the north side of the Palace—the Lord Chamberlain’s Court, the Master Carpenter’s Court, and others. Here are to be seen the narrow, irregular side courts of the old Tudor buildings, and remnants of the past in old lead water pipes, and in the heraldical beasts along the roof of the Great Hall which are most effectively seen from the Master Carpenter’s Court, through which we gain access to the cloisters and the ancient kitchens. The kitchens, which unfortunately are not thrown open to the public, are much as they were in olden days, and afford a curious and interesting glimpse of old-time domestic conditions, with their great fireplaces and their “hatches”, through which the dishes were passed to the servers whose duty it was to take them to the dining-hall.

Continuing past the kitchens the passage turns to the right and comes out at the north-west angle of the Fountain Court, before reaching which point, however, the entrance to the Chapel is passed on the left. On either side of the Chapel door are to be seen, carved, coloured, and gilt, the arms of Henry the Eighth and Seymour with the initials of the King and the Queen (of the moment) united by a true lover’s knot. The true lover’s knot was but a slip knot to the fickle king, the Queen Jane’s arms and cipher but replaced the earlier ones of Anne’s.

THE POND GARDEN

The present chapel was one of King Henry’s additions—Wolsey’s original chapel being either entirely demolished or so altered as to be made anew. It has been surmised that had the great Churchman’s edifice remained it would have been something externally beautiful and notable, whereas the present building is so much hidden that I have more than once known visitors to point out the Great Hall as being the Chapel. If the King did not make much of the Chapel externally, he lavished attention on it internally, so that a German visitor toward the close of the sixteenth century was able to wax enthusiastic as to its splendour. Above the public entrance near the Fountain Court is the great Royal Pew—entered from the Haunted Gallery—with a painted ceiling.

Though the Chapel dates from Tudor times, it must be remembered that its interior was rearranged and redecorated in the reign of Queen Anne, and that those responsible for the work were by no means hampered by any pedantic ideas of congruity. A matter of grievance to many visitors is that the Chapel is not thrown open to the public. It can only be seen at service time.

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