"Surrey a collection of glorius places" a Surrey Travel Page by jo104

Surrey is made up of many boroughs & districts some of which have their own separate VT page. I will endevour to visit many places in Surrey and share them on this page or link the pages to a more detailed page. Places such as Guilford and Epsom are well worth a visit but more of those later.

Hampton Court was England’s most significant palace of Tudor age, home to kings and queens of England including Henry VIII and his six wives.
Thomas Wolsey in 1514 built the palace as a summer home appropriate for a man of his status, an Archbishop of York, Chief Minister to King Henry VIII and later a Cardinal. He built lodgings for Henry VIII & his first wife Catherine of Aragon but was expelled from the premises after failing to secure the Pope’s consent for Henry VIII to divorce Catherine. Henry VIII then remodelled and extended Hampton Court spending a whopping GBP62,000 equates to GBP18,000,000 today.

King Henry’s wives lived here, his first wife Catherine of Aaragon lasted in marriage with him for 20 years. Next was Anne Boleyn who was executed at the tower in 1536 for adultery, she haunts the palace (see general). Jane Seymour who was the only wife to give him an heir Prince Edward but died 12 days after childbirth and haunts the palace. Anne of Cleaves – their marriage did not last long. Catherine Howard who too was executed and haunts the palace. Lastly his wife Catherine Parr outlived him

When William III (William of Orange) took the throne he commissioned Sir Christopher Wren to rebuild Hampton Court but lost interest in renovations after Queen Mary II died in 1694 and William died in 1702 from a fall off his horse. William was not a particularly good looking man, he was rather short and suffered from various ailments like asthma and dropsy which is poor circulation and made his legs a lead like colour. He felt happiest on the battlefield and this can be seen in the Kings guard chamber which is a public chamber adorned with 3,000 arms as decoration.

In 1838 Queen Victoria opened Hampton Court to the public. Sadly in 1986 a fire destroyed the Kings apartments which took 6 years to rebuild but luckily seashells in the roof gave the recovery team some vital time to save some pieces. The fire was started in a Grace and Favour residence room.

Please see my general tips for some ghosts that haunt this castle