Hampton Court Palace
Hampton Court Palace
VO
You probably know that Hampton Court provides a flashback to the days of Henry the 8th, and has a rich history dating back to before the 15th century. But are you aware that nowadays the past is far from dead and buried? In fact, it’s alive and well.
IV
The guides that we employ here are dressed in period’s costume, and they give a real flavour, to give someone in an Elizabethan or Tudor costume against the backdrop of the Tudor palace is absolutely wonderful.
VO
You can open up a window and look back in time, see what a Tudor kitchen looked like, and discover what they ate before hamburgers were invented.
GUIDE
They found that because oranges and lemons were coming from the same place, they tried making it from those as well, so that’s an orange marmalade.
VO
In Henry the 8th’s reign, the kitchen alone took up fifty rooms.
IV
The Tudor kitchens in Hampton Court are probably the most extensive surviving Tudor kitchens at all. And we have events that take place in the kitchens – they’re used – and they’re used by the most wonderful team of people who come in, and they recreate the kind of cooking and the kind of eating, and they’re dressed in the costumes of the period.
VOX
I love the Tudor kitchens, but maybe that’s just because I love to cook and bake and it’s hard for me to imagine people working in those circumstances. You feel like you’re almost hands on, even though you don’t want to be touching anything, but you’re right there and you can look into the pots and the bowls.
VO
And if it’s all getting too hot in the kitchen, you can go outside and relax in the gardens.
IV
The gardens at Hampton Court have a very very important history. Henry the 8th had a garden here which in the format of this garden was quite similar because he had raised walks on either side where he could connect up to the palace. Now the garden wasn’t as you see it today, full of flowers. It was laid out into twenty individual squares, which each had a heraldic device or a simple knot garden, and surrounding these were figures on pillars, figures of his coat of arms. And these beasts went throughout, you can see the surviving ones on the roof of the great hall, but the gardens, there were hundreds of them, literally hundreds, so you had no doubt as to whose gardens you were in.
VO
Well they may have belonged to kings, but you don’t have to be royalty anymore to enjoy them.
VOX
We just decided what to do with the kids, and they needed a good run around, came and sat in the grounds, had a game of footy, had a great time.
VO
And for a final word on Hampton Court Palace…
VOX
It sort of takes your breath away. It’s really quite wonderful.
