Hampton Court Palace

Today I had the absolute pleasure of visiting Hampton Court Palace for the first time properly, ever. Temperatures in London soared today as well and at a blistering 17 degrees I was even able to wear SHORTS. Too hopeful of an outfit on and we were set for a good day.

Hampton Court Palace hasn't been used as an official residence since the 18th century, and has been open to visitors since the 19th century. The Palace is run by a charity called Royal Historic Palaces. RHP also run Tower of London, Banqueting House, Kensington Palace and Kew Palace. The government body that was eventually established as its protector has its roots in the Crown Lands Act of 1851. RHP were originally banded together in the late 1980's and run as a government body it did not receive charity status until 1998. Since then they have been flying solo, although leasing the palaces which technically still belong to the crown. It's a bit of a weird set up really given the crown haven't given up their ownership but have unloaded the burden, the costly maintenance and repairs of historic properties, onto a charity. I'm going to guess that the advantage lies in the fact that by law these properties are protected from being sold...much like the protection that covers English Heritage and National Trust properties. These places are protected for our enjoyment and learning forever, and safe from greedy London property developers.

RHP are evidently veterans in heritage management, having their roots as far back as when the Great Exhibition was held in Hyde Park and when Victoria was Queen. Their expertise emanates throughout, from the interpretation in the rooms right to the work that they do with local universities - to give the experience of the lifetime to would be conservators doing their studies. Paying nearly £20 a head for entry is well worth it.

Only issue is the lack of a visitor route. I believe there is one on the audio guides, but we didn't pick one up. It's a big place and you really don't want to miss anything.

I took a few photos and videos, and have shared them below.

We started with the maze, the oldest hedge maze in the UK! Planted at the beginning of the 18th century and still standing today. Not an easy feat to find the middle (we thought it'd take 5 minutes, and I bet a lot of people do) and we were reminded of our unfounded arrogance/confidence in a quote written on the interpretation board as you reach the end:

"‘We’ll just go in here, so that you can say you’ve been, but it’s very simple. It’s absurd to call it a maze. You keep on taking the first turning to the right. We’ll just walk around for ten minutes, and then go and get some lunch.'"

 

- Jerome K

 

....They got very lost. They missed lunch.
 

We then visited the formal gardens, a short walk from the maze. Beautiful as you can probably imagine. Deck chairs scattered about with information of different monarchs written on the back of them. Such an amazing idea!! I was sat on James I, lol. This time of year brought lots of little ducks and geese being very cute - luring us near the water (we are both very clumsy but fortunately we didn't fall in).

 

 

A view of the east front of the palace. Both the east and south fronts were given their updated English Baroque face when William and Mary commissioned Sir Christopher Wren as their architect. Works took place, in stages due to a costly war, during the end of the 17th and beginning of 18th century. It is beautiful - and it is a wonderful thing that Wren did not completely destroy the Tudor palace that came before it because the red brick and Baroque elements of the palace work together beautifully. It was originally his plan to completely reface the whole palace - luckily William couldn't afford it.

 

Another Wren addition, a beautiful Baroque-ish colonnade lining the courtyard closest to the formal gardens. The courtyard is known as the fountain courtyard, for obvious reasons. Here you access the Royal Chapel (with the prettiest starry roof ever), its courtyard, the entrance to William III's state apartments (which lead on to Mary's state apartments) and the Georgian rooms. Looking back at it, we definitely did the visitor route backwards. It makes for a bit of a difficult read chronologically. Briefly speaking, the palace was built by a high up statesman in the court of Henry VII, Cardinal Wolsey, in 1514. Wolsey was accused by Anne Boleyn's advisors as having deliberately slowed down their efforts to get married. He was sent to Rome and ultimately charged with treason. In 1529 therefore the home he had made for himself in order to impress the King, was taken by the king himself. Henry expanded it into the red brick palace you can still see from the front entrance. The palace remained in favour with the monarchy right up until the 18th century, having survived Oliver Cromwell in 1649 and his want to destroy anything to do with the monarchy (he was advised to give it away as a present instead). The palace experienced major changes firstly during Henry's time, and then William's, with additional changes under George.

 

As you enter the room adjoining from the loggia outside, you are presented with William's apartments. The first picture is the amazing tromp l'oeil painted on the ceiling by Italian artist Antonio Verrio. The staircase lead up to the piano nobile and served to remind those who paid him a visit that their king was tasteful, rich, and most importantly: powerful. He spared no expense on his reputation given he had his enemies in the form of the jacobites, and evidently, he did a good job. He liked to think of himself as Alexander the Great, apparently. He must have forgotten that Alexander wouldn't have clad his palace in baroque, but classical instead - ooooops.

 

These two scary busts come jambs reside in the Guard room. They were sculpted in Grinling Gibbons' workshop, a man who was responsible for most of the wood carvings throughout the King's State and Privy apartments.

 

Coat of arms in the gable of the baroque pediments atop the doors.

 

This was another room clad in tromp l'eoil. There were a dozen tables laid out with different card/dice games. I learned how to play Hazard. Was loads of fun, with period music playing in the background.

 

This is the magnificently draped Queen's State bed, in front of wall paintings produced by James Thornhill. Just as ostentatious as the bed in the Great Chamber, known as William's 'sanctuary'. Only those privileged enough could enter. This room is an example of the privy chambers. If you look at the blue prints of many palaces they tend to extend outwards in wings. These wings would begin with big, entertaining, spaces, and retract into smaller more private rooms. There would often be a room separating the state from the private apartments too. To enter these privy spaces you'd have to be very important. If you were very lucky you could watch the monarchs be dressed in the mornings.

 

 

Period clothing was reproduced and laid out across the palace.

 

One of the most amazing things about the interpretation are the actors. They remain in character at all times and fill the rolls of councillors, courtesans and the kings themselves. We had this one barge past us and shout 'GET OUT THE WAY, YOUR KING IS COMING THROUGH'. We were trying to catch him on video afterwards...

 

The Clock Court Yard - beautifully sunny and serving wine from its wine fountain. The wine fountain has not been open to the public before and has just been fixed over the winter. It is formally opened by singing and dancing members of the Tudor court at two points during the day and actually serves wine!

 

 

The view as you come in to Henry's Kitchens from the Clock Court. It is like walking into a little village with winding streets, in the grounds of a massive palace. Really charming.

 

This man was one of Henry's cooks. He was telling us about the golden plated marzipan he made for the king and his court. He said that they were so rich that they were running out of ways to spend their money. One easy way appeared to be actually EATING gold. We ate some, and sure enough it had what appeared to be gold on it. I ate gold. Maybe.

 

 

A calligraphy workshop!

 

The kind of decoration one might expect on a fan vaulted ceiling. Really pretty, picture taken in the exhibition space currently exhibiting Henry VIII's life as a young man, his relationship with his first wife and Cardinal Wolsey.

 

 

Video of the actors during their wine fountain opening. Everyone was invited to join in and King Henry VIII even took photos with us.

 

The hammerbeam roof of the Great Hall and the tapestries underneath. Lots of conservation work going on with the tapestries at the minute, and there is some information on it in the room adjacent to this one. The light is making the already very delicate tapestries crumble. A new technique is being trialled to protect them. Instead of a sun blind you have to manually adjust to protect the items from direct sunlight, they have installed window visors that change from opaque to clear at the touch of a button.

 

An incredibly creepy painting. This depicts a servant boy during the Tudor period. This is placed in an alcove behind a pillar kind of thing and is scary when it pops out at you. They believe he might be spying on the court.

 

After we'd seen the gardens, William's and Mary's section and the Tudor section, we were off to the Cumberland art gallery. The rooms were designed by William Kent in 1732-34 and house part of the royal collection. There are Rembrandt's, Canaletto's, Caravaggio's and Caracci's. This is a pretty ceiling in one of the rooms just prior to the collection.

 

 

References
 http://www.hrp.org.uk/HamptonCourtPalace/
Hampton Court Palace Official Guide

Chiswick House

Last week my classmates and I visited Chiswick House and Gardens in Hounslow, London. For info on how to get there and the opening times click here. The building we see today is how it has looked since 1950 but before then it was much larger with protruding wings at either side. Logic would lead you to believe that if the rest of the house was damaged during air raids during the war then there would be a great impetus to conserve and repair the house but no - oh no - it was someone's bright idea to tear some (most?) of the house down. The convent in Milan where Leonardo's Last Supper is was badly hit during the war but you don't see the Italians just knocking it down, do you? Although, maybe it was fate that the house should be dismantled - given most of the property that had been on the site was gone anyway (there was a massive Jacobean house that stood beside it that was demolished in the 1780s). As luck would have it, during the demolition a part of the house that was there before the addition of the wings (by the Duke of Devonshire: the same man who tore apart the Jacobean house) was found and it has since been restored from the ground up. That is not all though, the house has had a colourful history thanks to the financial difficulties of its owners. Their inability to keep the house running meant that it has been a mental hospital and a firestation before it was sold to Middlesex Council and then taken under the wing of English Heritage and ultimately given its Grade I listed building status.

Casting aside all the alterations made throughout time, the original house was built for Lord Burlington in the 1720s in the back garden of his Jacobean House already mentioned. It was designed by Burlington himself while William Kent gave him a helping hand with the interiors and gardens. It was initially separate from the neighbouring house. However, the house (in Burlington's time) did not have any real practical rooms. There was a number of halls, galleries and so forth but no kitchen or bathroom. There was, notably, a wine cellar. The villa was obviously an entertaining space but the issue still remains: where can you eat, and more importantly where could you go to the toilet? Burlington resolved this with ease: one would walk along the garden to the neighbouring house to use the facilities that are lacking in the villa. This was probably all well and good until he remembered he was in England and therefore decided it would be best to create a room to 'link' the two houses together. This is the part of the house that was rediscovered when demolishing the Duke of Devonshire's wings (of which the architect was John White). 

We came in through the car park which first takes you through a series of  maze-like gardens by William Kent before it leads you here - at the side of the house:

Despite having been told that the house is not particularly big (by country house standards) it is still underwhelming to see the size of it in person. The gardens are very beautiful and full of people so in general it is quite a cheery place - but - first impressions were not great. 

However when you turn the corner things begin to make sense. This is thought to be the best surviving Palladian exterior in England and it is incredibly beautiful and reminds us all of the Villa Rotunda. It is not overwhelmingly decorative and that is because Lord Burlington believed a house is a reflection of the gentleman that owns it; therefore, it needs to be calm and perhaps even austere on the outside while on the inside lively and personal.

My favourite part of the facade are these staircases. I don't know why - they just are. I'm not much of a photographer so believe me when I say there is a statue of Palladio behind the staircase in the first picture  while there is a statue of Inigo Jones behind the staircase in the picture directly above (I think it is that way round...). Regardless of the which way round they are, they are there to pay homage to the creator of the style that Burlington has used (Palladio) while equally claiming that English architecture is the best (Jones).

This was originally the entrance before Lord Burlington moved the road further in front of the villa (yes- he moved a road). This is a sphinx. They are the symbolic gate keepers of secrets and riddles and suggest that Lord Burlington wanted his house to be mysterious and baffle his contemporaries (which it did). In line with the secrets and mysteries idea my lecturer mentioned an article that was written about 20 years ago that entertained the possibility that Burlington was a Jacobite. For a man in his position,being found supporting the Catholic Old Pretender would be disastrous. But, the article suggests, he was keeping his wits about him and ensuring that upon a possible Catholic return he was not punished.

Palladianism was the style of a new Britain. At the beginning of the 18th century the political intrigue that denied The Old Pretender his throne had to extend far enough into culture as to consolidate the new Britain that it had created. It was the Whigs who took it upon themselves to be the government in support of George II and Lord Burlington was (supposedly) a Whig. Thanks to Colen Campbell's Vitruvius Britannicus (1715-25) that promotes Palladianism as the only style fit for the new king, Burlington (and others) turned their back on the Baroque style and took up the Palladian style.

The octagonal gallery.

Gallery

The 3 pictures above are of the 'Dome Saloon'. It has some beautiful plaster work with a coeffered ceiling (although they seem to be EVERYWHERE) and a cute pattern on the floor that I liked. It was quite a small space, as is all of the house really, and it is hard to imagine any real big dinner parties happening here. It is the biggest room, or at least less narrow than the others, but still a banqueting table would not fit comfortably here. Perhaps then, it is changing trends at parties among the elite. No longer would people spend their time together all night but they'd venture off into different areas of the house to engage in different activites: cards, reading, dancing...?

This is the ceiling to the central part of the Gallery. The Gallery is made up of three small rooms. The outer two rooms are octagonal with absidal ends and a richly decorated coeffered ceiling. This room, the middle room, is rectangular. I believe it is this image that Burlington believed was by Veronese (important because he painted for Palladio). It's not.

Mythology: Burlington was part of the gang of people who began to look back to Renaissance sources and see them in light of the people who inspired them. Therefore, it is not surprising that Burlington played around with mythology in his design. He was incorporating the language of the ancients but for his own use. This here represents the origins of the Corinthian order as described by Vitruvius. If you look closely you'll see what appears to be acanthus leaves coming out of a head. The story is that a girl died and her maid places a basket on her grave from which acanthus grew. He was showing us that art and architecture was important to him and that he was no fool - he shared secrets with Vitruvius.

This ceiling is potentially by Kent. It represents the three arts.

This is the Red Velvet room. Red Velvet was seen as a good combination of colour and texture from which to hang art. The inventory says that there was an awful lot crammed in here.

Same as the Red Velvet room - but in blue. The roof represents architecture and quite fittingly Burlington used to display his drawings by Palladio that he had collected on his second Grand Tour here. 

The Green velvet room.

I was given a plan of the house as it was in the 18th century and this - as per the inventory made upon Burlington's death suggested - was a bedroom. The bottom picture was the bed chamber while the top picture was the closet. Very small.

The garden is still for the most part a formal one. Although, there have been a handful of places that have been left to grow. Pretty nonetheless.

Lastly, they have a cafe and a field with loads of games on it. Including this connect 4 that I won..... (and lifesize chess but I don't know how to play it...)

XX