England Trip: Hampton Court Palace

Hampton Court has been one of attractions we have both been looking forward to most, and it did not disappoint (although I still think the zoo was the overall highlight for me so far :)). The amount of history in this place was almost tangible.

We started our journey by touring King Henry the eighth's kitchen rooms. Many of these were staged to look how they may have looked at the time with props as below:

Whereas other parts of the kitchens were clearly still in use, run by the Historia food archaeologists who do traditional cooking displays, and the area can be hired for events.

This is the massive fireplace that heats the whole room!

And this was where the food was prepared for serving.

King Henry also had some pretty crazy and magnificent wine cellars!

The Great Hall was where all the food got eaten, the staff had separate eating times to the nobility and all the meal times were extremely strict. The average courtier ate over 4000 calories per day....no wonder many of them ended up so large....

After exploring King Henry's Kitchens and some of his apartments, we ate traditional English food In Queen Elizabeth the first's private kitchen! I had a chicken leek and ham pie followed by a scone with jam and clotted cream and James had a steak and ale pie followed by a flapjack. It was kind of crazy to think that this was where all of Queen Elizabeth I's fancy meals were prepared!

After lunch we finished off the Tudor part of Hampton Court by checking out King Henry's chocolate kitchens where they made drinking chocolate and exploring "Young Henry's Story" which took you through Henry the eighth's tragic story. The remainder of the palace is decorated in a baroque style and dedicated to the Georgians, William III and Mantegna's Triumph of Caesar. We did not look through these areas as we really wanted to see the gardens, but we did get a glimpse of some of the very juxtaposing white-washed architecture.

The Chocolate Kitchen

The Tudor Family Tree

There are almost no words for the Hampton Court gardens, it honestly must be the biggest employer of gardeners in the UK!! There were probably about 10 or more staff working on maintaining it just while we were there! We didn't go through the famous maze as it cost extra and I didn't feel like spending the remainder of my afternoon getting lost, but we did see almost everything else - the Privy Garden, the Pond Gardens, the Great Vine (largest grape vine in the world), the Great Fountain Garden and the Rose Gardens, some of which is pictured below. We could easily have spend another full day at Hampton Court.