The Tudor age was a time of great wealth and deep poverty. For the wealthy few, there were no bounds to what they could afford to do. Hampton Court Palace is of this time.
Hampton Court is one of the world's finest palaces. It was built in Tudor times, starting in 1514 when Cardinal Wolsey, one of King Henry VIII's most important and wealthy advisors, designed a palace to give himself a status equal to the cardinals in Rome, but which was to rival the palaces of the king.
It was sited close to the River Thames about 12 miles from central London. At that time river transport was still the fastest and safest means of travel, and nearly all of King Henry VIII's many palaces were also by the river.
The floodplain of the Thames is wide and flat, giving plenty of opportunity for building on a grand scale, and in later years for digging out a great formal lake.
Wolsey lived in an age when castles were just being made redundant, and also when a new building material - brick - was becoming all the rage. The earliest buildings were built around a courtyard by Wolsey, and they still show some mock features of a castle in the form of round towers. The entrance to the court is almost like a gatehouse to a castle bailey and the grounds in front almost look like a moat.
But the use of brick, and the development of large panes of glass, gave a completely new style to palace building. These new palaces were not cold, damp and draughty like the ancient castles. They were warm, with doors, galleries, fireplaces, wooden and tapestry walls, and many of the comforts of what we would think of as modern living.
When Cardinal Wolsey fell out of favour with Henry VII, he gave Henry his palace, and Henry began to add to it, adding massive extra areas for his vast court, and kitchens to feed them. Henry also built the Great Hall seen just behind and to the left of the entrance court. It was also at this time that the formal gardens including the famous maze were laid out.
But by the 17th century, much of the rear of the Tudor palace was pulled down to make way for a new development designed by Sir Christopher Wren for King William and Queen Mary, and meant to be of the same style as the famous French palace near Paris at Versailles. That is why the 'back' half of the palace looks so different from the Tudor front.
