QUEEN MARY'S BOWER, HAMPTON COURT PALACE

This view is from within Queen Mary's Bower looking towards the William and Mary part of the palace and border the Privy Garden. These days it is known as Queen Mary's Bower but it was established well before her time. It seems that the bower of elm trees was established in Tudor times. Work began on it in 1531.

It was a favourite spot of Queen Mary to pass the days while inspecting the work on her new Palace designed by Christopher Wren. Her husband William of Orange was away making war on the Irish!

"From the terrace one should stroll beneath the dark-green branches of the yew-trees, or along the ever-verdant grass walks, to the fountain that plashes gently in the middle of the parterre ; and thence returning, through the leafy arcade of Queen Mary's Bower — a " dappled path of mingled light and shade " — pass to the old "Pond Garden," which remains very much as it did, when Henry VIII strolled therein with Anne Boleyn ; and where, in the midst of a walled enclosure, surrounded with flowering creepers of all sorts, an old fountain trickles in front of a picturesque arbour. This is indeed a spot of the daintiest and rarest beauty, the product of nigh four centuries of care and time, which no expenditure of money or art could possibly create."

"It is 100 yards in length, 20 feet high, and 12 feet wide, and the
branches of the trees are so wonderfully intergrown and interlaced, as to form an avenue completely enclosed and roofed in."

"Here, at the Water Gallery, and in the gardens close to it, Mary spent most of her time ; sometimes plying her needle on the balcony of beautiful wrought iron, which overhung the then uncockneyfied Thames, and watching the barges float to and fro ; sometimes superintending the laying out of the gardens, or attending to her botanical collection ; sometimes discussing with Wren the details of the new building, and sometimes sitting at work with her ladies, beneath the shade of the curious intertwined trees, still known by the name of " Queen Mary's Bower."

(HISTORY OF HAMPTON COURT PALACE by Ernest J. Law.)

Black and white post card photograph of Queen Mary's Bower, Hampton Court Palace, no. 12537 by Gale and Polden Ltd., London, Aldershot and Portsmouth. The post card is undated and unused, but others in the same series 'The Wellington Series' appear to date from circa 1900