Hampton Court Palace

Hampton Court Palace was built from 1515 by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who surrendered it to Henry VIII in 1529 after falling from royal favour; Henry subsequently enlarged the palace into his principal residence, adding the Great Hall and the astronomical clock that still functions in Clock Court. Henry VIII was married here to several of his six wives, and the palace's Tudor kitchens, among the largest surviving in Europe, once fed a court of over 600 people. In the 1690s William III and Mary II commissioned Christopher Wren to modernise the palace, resulting in the Baroque King's and Queen's Apartments that stand alongside the surviving Tudor state rooms, creating an unusual architectural juxtaposition of two royal building campaigns two centuries apart. The palace's celebrated maze, planted around 1700, and 60 acres of formal gardens complete the site. Interpretation is organised by historical wing, Tudor state apartments, Georgian rooms, and Wren's Baroque apartments, allowing visitors to move between architectural periods. Historic Royal Palaces has restored the Tudor kitchens to working condition and undertaken ongoing conservation of the Baroque interiors and formal gardens.