May 18 2012

Place visited: Hampton Court Palace
Hi there! :D Welcome back! :)


Today we visited a very beautiful and famous castle in the United Kingdom. It is the Hampton Court Palace. It is absolutely remarkable and we were all very happy to be able to go inside the gardens, the castle, and the kitchen of it.

Hampton Court Palace dateline

1494 

Giles Daubeney, later Lord Chamberlain, leases and modernises the medieval manor of Hampton Court

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1514 

Thomas Wolsey, soon to be made cardinal, leases Hampton Court Palace. He begins rebuilding on a grand scale, converting Hampton Court into a lavish palace. Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon visit for the first time.

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1523 

Henry VIII’s former tutor John Skelton writes that, 'The King’s Court should hath the excellence. But Hampton Court hath the pre-eminence'.

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1529 

Henry VIII’s royal workmen take over building works at Hampton Court Palace

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1530 

Henry VIII and his councillors send the first letter threatening a break with the Papacy to Rome from the palace

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1537 

Queen Jane Seymour, Henry VIII’s third wife, gives birth to Prince Edward. He is baptized with great ceremony in the Chapel Royal, but she dies soon after due to complications from the birth.

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1540  

Henry VIII’s divorce from Anne of Cleves is signed at the palace. It is also where Henry VIII marries his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, and she is proclaimed queen.  

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1541 

Catherine Howard’s earlier sexual liaisons are revealed to Henry VIII at Hampton Court. She is interrogated and kept under house arrest in the palace.

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1543 

Henry VIII marries his sixth and final wife, Kateryn Parr, in the Chapel Royal

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1603 

Shakespeare and his company the ‘King’s Men’ perform plays in the Great Hall for King James I

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1604 

James I calls the Hampton Court Conference which commissions the King James Bible

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1689 

Sir Christopher Wren demolishes large parts of the Tudor palace and begins building a new palace for King William III and Queen Mary II

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1760 

George III becomes king. He abandons Hampton Court as royal residence and it begins to be divided up into grace-and-favour apartments.

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1838 

Queen Victoria opens the gardens and state apartments to the public free of charge

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1944 

General, later President, Eisenhower plans the Normandy landings in Bushy Park

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1984 

Prince Charles, speaking at Hampton Court, calls for 'a new harmony between imagination and taste and in the relationship between the architects and the people of this country'.

Hampton Court Palace Today

This is us, about to venture into the gardens' labyrinth. (and maybe get lost) :P

In the center of the labyrinth, there was a "prize"! :D

Beautiful quote!

Now that we were done with the maze, many of us split apart from each other and went and explored more of the castles' grounds. Which were absolutely extraordinarily beautiful! :)

Hampton Court Palace Gardens

The Hampton Court Palace was very beautiful! :) It was absolutely magnificent and a wonderful site to see. The history of the palace is very rich with beautifully, interwoven stories.
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~Lucky :) <3