HAMPTON Ct. PALACE - WEST FRONT & OLD BARRACKS

The main entrance to the Hampton Court Palace lies to the west of the original building. Here you see a photo that gives some idea of the popularity of the spot for tourists in the Edwardian era. Note the fences to keep the public off the manicured lawns. Those bollards are interesting too!

On the left you can see the Old Barracks building that dates back to the late seventeenth century: 1689. It is the oldest purpose-built barracks in the country: rugged and functional.

After the reign of George II, no monarch has ever resided at Hampton Court. In fact, George III never set foot in the palace: he associated the state apartments with a humiliating scene when his grandfather the King struck him following an innocent remark.

The Palace became a place where Londoners could escape for outings on summer holidays. The large parklands - the Royal Parks became important as London’s ‘lungs’ – green and peaceful places where people could stroll and picnic.

Although no longer occupied by Royalty, the Palace and its adjacent buildings were and are still well used.

Lucy Worsley recalls:

‘When I started my job as chief curator of the Historic Royal Palaces in February 2002, I moved down from Scotland and didn’t have anywhere to live, so for a while I stayed in Hampton Court Palace. Any palace is basically like a really fancy apartment block, where the king has his flat and the queen has hers and the mistress has hers and all the courtiers have theirs, so the whole thing is split up.

At Hampton Court there are 114 apartments .......

I moved to the barrack block, a 17th-century guards’ building.

I had neighbours there, so there were other people after dark, which made it a bit less spooky. It had single-glazed casement windows, so the wind whistled in, and funny little closets off the bedrooms. It’s the only place I’ve ever lived that had two bedrooms and it meant I had a room of my mine to write in. It’s where, looking out at the statue of Apollo, I drafted the proposal for the first book I ever had published. It was called Cavalier and was about the 17th century, and I wrote it in a 17th century building.

Hampton Court Palace is a real community. There are hundreds of people coming in each day to work, so it has a villagey feel and is very sociable. I was only 29 and it first it was very daunting to a newcomer. But once a week my friend Amanda would come and stay with me, and as time when on and the summer came, I began to settle in. We had a Christmas party in my little flat, and sometimes the cooks would stay in the flat next to mine – they work in the great kitchens and spend all day cooking a big Tudor meal, and when they stayed in the apartment next to mine, I would sometimes hear Tudor singing late at night.

.... One of the things that’s said about Hampton Court is that it’s only time and not space that separates you there from the past. I knew I was just a little ghost, passing though. I was glad eventually to get a place of my own, for privacy, really. But it was a marvellous, magical place to live.’
(The Sunday Times )

This is a PC from the Wellington Series published by Gale and Polden Ltd., London, Aldershot and Portsmouth, numbered 12036.