This is by far my favorite palace. It is clearly quite elaborate but the way it's laid out feels comfortable and like a home you could live in....a really big home...but a home none the less. It is designed and built in the Tudor style of architecture which I find very elegant and under stated with really nice details. Not gaudy like so many others seem to be. Really it's the top shape of all the doors and windows that get me. Also unlike many of the other styles it wasn't about lots of bright flashy gold it was more about tall the beautiful intricate woodwork, whimsical gardens and fruit trees that had to be specially maintained since they weren't indigenous to the area and showed wealth.
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| Hampton Palace Court |
This palace was also home to a lot of intriguing scandal from the playboys of this era Charles II and all his mistresses. He had sultry paintings done of them and had them hung in his private dining rooms. I think we should take a moment and feel for his poor wife that had to eat dinner with the seductive eyes of his mistresses staring at her from the walls. Also King Henry VIII who really needs no other explanation. This definitely would have been the palace I would have wanted to live in...no not as a part of a scandal or as a mistress and shame on all of you who thought that! It's because it's the first one that had a royal tennis court that people still can use and it has a true "Maze" or Labyrinth. As I was running through the maze trying to get out I was also secretly hoping to find David Bowie around each corner but he was no where to be found. If you don't know what I am talking about right now I am very disappointed in you and you need to rent and watch the movie Labyrinth immediately.
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| The Maze....David where are you? |
Another claim to fame of this palace is the Great Vine....it's the longest live and still growing vine in the world. It's even in the Guinness book of World Records. Gonna be honest here...least impressive thing for me but apparently a big deal. Maybe I'm unimpressed because I have been in the book of records too. Anyway, the vine was really long...I told you about it...and now I'm moving on.
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| Lovely whimsical garden |
Really this place is so lovely! It is right on the river which is beautiful and the gardens truly are the most inviting I have seen. Some many of them were so huge you would never have been able to see or enjoy all of them. I would love to just bring a book and sit under one of these cute trees and enjoy the spring time sun. I am thinking about moving in...if I don't come back you know where to come look for me...Hampton Palace.
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| View of the river outside the palace |
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