At Hampton Court Palace we got caught up in a re-enactment of the case against Thomas Culpeper and Henry VIII's Queen Catherine Howard, and (believe it or not!!) Joan was chosen to act as one of the questioners against Culpeper. That's me in the centre, seated, as a member of the King's court. I had to ask:
"Master Culpeper, My Lord the Duke of Norfok informs us that he has received report that you have been with the Queen five or six times in secret and suspect places, among others at Lincoln, where you were closetted together five or six hours. Is this true?" The act involved a number of members of the audience, including children, who did a great job. Of course, the result was that Queen Catherine, Thomas Culpeper, and Lady Rochford were all put to death, and the re-enactment made it all seem very real.
The Great Hall is the largest room in Hampton Court Palace, built in the 1530s for Henry VIII, but restored in the 1840s. It is 32 metres long, 12 metres wide, 18 metres high, an has a musician's gallery at one end.
The hammer-beam ceiling is most impressive, and the wood is decorated in red, blue and gold paint.
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| Thomas Culpeper at left, Lady Rochford (Mary, the widowed sister-in-law of Anne Boleyn), with a court guard at right, watched by the audience who were playing the parts of members of the King's court. |
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| Samples of some of the golden plate that made up King Henry VIII's dinner ware. |
One of the laneways at Hampton Court Palace, leading from a courtyard towards the kitchens.
Two cooks turning the spit to roast joints of beef in the 500 year old kitchens that at that time produced 1500 meals per day for Henry's court members and their staffs and guests. These actors told us that this is the oldest cooking apparatus still being used in England, exactly as it was in the 1500s.
Joan is walking from one passageway in the old palace into another leading to the network of great kitchens where massive amounts of food were prepared daily to feed the vast numbers of courtiers.
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| Gary took this image of part of the wine cellars next to the kitchens at Hampton Court Palace. |
A group of musicians in the courtyard played instruments that were common in England during the 1500s.
Gary took this photograph from a window of the palace, looking over one small part of the magnificent gardens at Hampton Court Palace. In one section there is a maze, that Andy easily defeated by finding his way through without coming to a dead end.
150 years after Henry VIII the palace was owned by William III (William of Orange, the Dutch prince who married Mary II of England). Mary and William were joint monarchs, and made great changes to parts of Hampton Court Palace, through Christopher Wren's designs of baroque-style apartments.
A courtyard surrounded by the oldest surviving buildings of Hampton Court Palace, dating from about 1514 when Thomas Wolsey purchased Hampton Court when it was just a manor house built after about 1494. Wolsey gained great power and wealth as King Henry VIII's indispensable administrator, and was made a cardinal. He made the whole complex into a luxurious palace.
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| Gary photographed Joan walking in the long covered gallery that allowed King William III and his Queen Mary II to walk during rainy weather, and was also used as an orangery. |
The Great Fountain Garden was formerly part of Henry VIII's hunting park, but became an elaborate formal garden with yet trees and holly globes, gravelled avenues and thirteen fountains.
Gary's great hope of photographing an expanse of spring flowers was realised at Hampton Court Palace.
Daffodils, jonquils and bluebells make a beautiful splash of colour in the area of the gardens known as 'The Wilderness'.
Jonquils growing freely under the trees in 'The Wilderness'.
Springtime blossoms starting to appear on the trees throughout 'The Wilderness'.
