Located on the banks of the River Thames only a few miles southwest of London, present-day Hampton Court is a striking example of Tudor architectural ambition lavishly funded by England’s capacious monarch. Peel back the layers of the complex and you will find a Crusader monastery, a medieval manor, an ambitious cardinal’s playhouse, and an extravagant king’s palace.
Laid out in two contiguous courtyards—a third is Stuart Baroque designed by Christopher Wren—Hampton Court as an architectural construct is the crown jewel of the early Tudor golden age.
Foundations of the original 12th-century medieval buildings, possibly a large farmhouse and outbuildings, are located beneath today’s Base Court. Two hundred years later, these functioned as a quasi-monastery for the Order of the Knights Hospitallers, a powerful group of crusading militants who fought in the Holy Land.
The site has ancient royal connections. Excavations in 2008 uncovered walls marked by a fire that happened in 1353 when Edward III came to visit. Chagrined by the damage, the king offered his own workmen from Windsor to oversee rebuilding, and not long after, the complex was modernized to create a gentleman’s manor house, which was offered by England’s kings to their loyal servants.
As Henry VIII’s most influential advisor, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey took over Hampton Court in 1514. As the second-most-powerful man in the kingdom, Wolsey envisioned a residence on a lavish scale and razed the old medieval buildings to erect a modern palace that outshone those of his master.
It was Wolsey, who devised the double courtyard design with public rooms and guest lodgings set around the outer Base Court and privy chambers and royal guestrooms around the inner or Clock Court. As a Catholic cardinal and the king’s chief advisor, Wolsey saw Hampton Court as the visual embodiment of his religious and temporal power.
The cardinal’s architectural vision was influenced by Humanist philosophy and its emphasis on Classical imperatives. The architecture of Hampton Court shows a fine balance between earlier domestic Tudor building patterns and Italian Renaissance architectural innovations.
The palace is a symmetrical, rectilinear complex whose towering gatehouses lift the eye up in the medieval Gothic manner while its flanking wings spread space outward in a Classical horizontal manner.
Wolsey was a sophisticated connoisseur at a time when his king was hiring gangs of artists and artisans from Italy, Flanders, and France. Many had worked on Francois I’s elaborate Renaissance palaces and brought their skills and their Continental aesthetics with them to England.
Wolsey showed no hesitation in poaching the king’s artists. Men such as Giovanni da Maiano, who created eight terracotta relief busts of Roman emperors to decorate the courtyard walls, were responsible for the Classical flourishes that distinguish the palace.
Clever as he was, Wolsey made a tactical error when he displayed his architectural treasure to his greedy master. In 1528, after Wolsey’s fall from favor, Henry VIII took possession and turned the cardinal’s palace into a pleasure seat fit for a king. Artists like Lucas Horenboult of Flanders and Niccolo da Modena of Italy were enlisted to draw up elaborate interior designs.
Royal suites for the king and his current queen were laid out on a piano nobile plan following contemporary Italian cues but incorporating standard English architectural references, such as a great hall with hammer-beam ceiling and a Great Watching Chamber.
Particularly in the commissariat portions of the palace, the kitchens, wash court, and storerooms, an English medieval aesthetic has been preserved. Henry’s love of sports was incorporated, too, with the addition of a tiltyard, tennis court, and extensive gardens decorated with wooden poles topped by brightly painted figures of the king’s beasts.
Henry’s love of Hampton Court lasted his lifetime, but later monarchs did not share his passion. Where in the early 16th century, the palace had been on the cutting edge of Tudor architectural design, by the end of the 17th century, it was old-fashioned and neglected. The Stuart monarchs Mary II and William III devised grandiose plans to tear down Henry’s work and put up a huge Baroque palace in the style of Versailles.
Although a large section of the Tudor building was destroyed, luckily for history, time and money ran out in 1694 when Mary died and William lost interest. The Fountain Court with its signature Christopher Wren facades adds a Stuart pedigree to the site, but Hampton Court’s glories are reserved for its Tudor architecture whose size and magnificence are unmatched and offer a tangible tribute to the king and cardinal who created them.
Susan James is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles. She has lived in India, the U.K., and Hawaii and writes about art and culture. Her new book, The Feminine Dynamic in English Art, 1485–1603: Women as Consumers, Patrons and Painters, was published in March 2009 by Ashgate Press.
