Hampton Court Palace

Summary

A Grade I listed Tudor and Baroque royal palace on the north bank of the River Thames at East Molesey in Surrey, begun from 1515 by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey and enlarged by Henry VIII after 1529; comprising the Tudor Great Hall, Chapel Royal, Base Court, Clock Court, Fountain Court, and the King’s and Queen’s State Apartments added in the 1690s for William III and Mary II by Christopher Wren; set within 60 acres of formal gardens including the Great Vine (1768), the Maze (c.1700), the Privy Garden restored to its 1702 layout, and the Tiltyard Gardens; managed by Historic Royal Palaces; used extensively as a filming location including The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), A Man for All Seasons (1966), Vanity Fair (2004), The Young Victoria (2009), Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011), The Theory of Everything (2014), Cinderella (2015), The Favourite (2018), Bridgerton (2020 onwards), and numerous other productions.

About this location

Hampton Court Palace stands on the north bank of the River Thames at East Molesey in Surrey, approximately twelve miles south-west of central London, connected by the Hampton Court Bridge to the Middlesex bank. The palace was built from 1515 by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, then Lord Chancellor of England, on the site of an earlier manor. Wolsey constructed a large courtyard house in the then-modern brick with terracotta decorative roundels and chimneys; it was among the grandest private residences in England. In 1529, as Wolsey fell from royal favour, Henry VIII took possession of the palace and undertook a substantial expansion programme lasting through the 1530s, adding the Great Hall with its hammer-beam roof, the Chapel Royal, the Great Kitchen complex, the tennis courts, and further residential ranges.

The Tudor palace retains its external appearance largely as Henry VIII left it: the red-brick gatehouse of the main entrance (the Trophy Gate), the Base Court with its octagonal kitchen chimney stacks, and the Anne Boleyn Gateway with its astronomical clock of 1540 (still functioning). The Great Hall, completed around 1535, has a hammer-beam roof with carved wooden pendants and a minstrels’ gallery; it served as the principal dining room for the court and contains a set of Flemish tapestries from the 1530s. The Chapel Royal retains its Baroque wooden ceiling added under Queen Anne.

Following the Restoration, Charles II undertook garden improvements in the formal French style. William III and Mary II commissioned Christopher Wren to rebuild much of the palace in the new Baroque manner from 1689; Wren completed the King’s and Queen’s State Apartments around the Fountain Court, a colonnaded quadrangle in Portland stone. These Baroque interiors contain work by Grinling Gibbons (limewood carvings), Antonio Verrio (painted ceilings), and Jean Tijou (ironwork screens). Work ceased on Wren’s grander replacement scheme on Mary’s death in 1694; the Tudor ranges survive because William lost interest in the project.

The gardens extend to approximately 60 acres. The Maze, planted in hornbeam around 1700, is among the oldest surviving hedge mazes in the world. The Great Vine, planted in 1768 from a cutting, produces Black Hamburg grapes sold in the palace shop annually. The Privy Garden on the south front was restored in 1995 to its documented appearance of 1702, with Tijou’s twelve wrought-iron screens re-installed on the riverside boundary.

The palace ceased to be a royal residence after 1737 and was opened to the public by Queen Victoria in 1838; it has been managed since 1989 by Historic Royal Palaces, an independent charity.

Film productions at Hampton Court Palace include: The Private Life of Henry VIII (London Film Productions, 1933, directed by Alexander Korda, starring Charles Laughton, the first British film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture); Three Men in a Boat (BBC, 1975, adapted from Jerome K. Jerome’s novel); A Man for All Seasons (Highland Films/Columbia, 1966, directed by Fred Zinnemann, starring Paul Scofield as Sir Thomas More and Robert Shaw as Henry VIII, winner of six Academy Awards including Best Picture); Vanity Fair (Focus Features, 2004, directed by Mira Nair, starring Reese Witherspoon as Becky Sharp, adapted from Thackeray’s novel); Little Dorrit (BBC/WGBH, 2008, written by Andrew Davies, starring Matthew Macfadyen and Claire Foy, adapted from Dickens); The Young Victoria (GK Films, 2009, directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, starring Emily Blunt as Victoria and Rupert Friend as Prince Albert); Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (Walt Disney Pictures, 2011, directed by Rob Marshall, starring Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow); Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (Warner Bros., 2011, directed by Guy Ritchie, starring Robert Downey Jr.); The Theory of Everything (Working Title/Universal, 2014, directed by James Marsh, starring Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking and Felicity Jones as Jane Wilde); Cinderella (Walt Disney Pictures, 2015, directed by Kenneth Branagh, starring Lily James); Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (Universal, 2018); The Favourite (Film4/Element Pictures, 2018, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, starring Olivia Colman as Queen Anne, Emma Stone, and Rachel Weisz); Belgravia (ITV/Carnival, 2020); The Great (Hulu, 2020 onwards, created by Tony McNamara, starring Elle Fanning as Catherine the Great); Bridgerton (Netflix/Shondaland, 2020 onwards, created by Chris Van Dusen, starring Regé-Jean Page and Phoebe Dynevor); Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (Netflix, 2023); The Sandman (Netflix, 2022, based on Neil Gaiman’s comics); Renegade Nell (Disney+, 2024, created by Sally Wainwright).