THE CLOCK COURT, HAMPTON COURT PALACE.

Hampton Court Palace has three courtyards. The first is Base Court: posted yesterday. On the other side of Anne Boleyn’s Gate lies another inner courtyard: an area known as Clock Court. This card is a view of Anne Boleyn’s Gate but from this inner side.

Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York, Chief Minister and favorite of Henry VIII, took over the site of Hampton Court Palace in 1514. Base Court was his creation, as was the second, Clock Court. Wolsey's seal remains visible in this postcard over the entrance arch of the clock tower, which contained his private rooms.

Henry VIII stayed in the state apartments as Wolsey's guest immediately after their completion in 1525. Clock Court contained the very best rooms – the state apartments – reserved for the King and his family after Henry took over the Palace for himself a few years later.

Henry also commissioned Nicolas Kratzer aka 'Cratzer' (a Bavarian and friend of court painter Hans Holbein) to design an astronomical clock for his palace at Hampton Court, which was installed around 1540.

The clock was made by French clockmaker Nicholas Oursian who was appointed clock-keeper to Hampton Court in 1541 and was clockmaker to successive monarchs until his death in 1590.

“The clock tells the hour, month, day of the month, the position of the sun in the ecliptic, the twelve signs of the zodiac, the number of days that have elapsed since the beginning of the year, the phases of the moon, its age in days, the hour in which it crosses the meridian, and, therefore, the time of high water at London Bridge. As Henry VIII often travelled by river in the Royal barge the king insisted Cratzer install an astronomical clock at the palace to indicate the time of high tide in London, and therefore the best time to travel by boat."

"Originally there were two clock faces, one on either side of the gatehouse, both powered by the complex mechanical and gearing system created by Oursian (whose initials, N.O., and the date 1540 can still be seen on the mechanism)."

"The smaller dial which faced Base Court was for guests, however, this was replaced in 1835 by a slate clock face from St James’s Palace bearing the monogram of William IV. "

"The Clock Court dial is extremely complicated. It is fifteen feet in diameter and consists of three separate copper dials, of different sizes, with a common centre but revolving at different speeds."

"This clock was designed before the discoveries of Copernicus and Galileo, when it was believed the sun revolved around the earth rather than the earth around the sun. Consequently the clock depicts the earth represented as a small globe in the centre, while the sun goes around it on a pointer.
There are three bells in the belfry, the oldest of which was cast in 1478. It had been given to Cardinal Wolsey by the Knights of St John in Jerusalem who leased the Manor of Hampton Court to Wolsey on the 11th January 1514."

http://www.hrp.org.uk/Resources/Astronomical%20Clock%20in%20Clock%20Court.pdf

The 500 year old clock is in working order and was restored and reinstated in April 2008. This rare astronomical clock is one of the most significant late-medieval clocks in Europe, with only a handful of clocks predating King Henry’s surviving today.

CARD 12531.
Publisher - G&P Ltd 'The Wellington Series' - Photo by Gale & Polden.