HAMPTON COURT.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20470, 13 February 1932, Page 17

HAMPTON COURT.

AN ENGLISH SHOW PLACE. (By T.C.L.) Of all tho royal residences in or sear London Hampton Court is probably the best known. Only 15 miles from the city, close to the river Thames, Hampton Court with its "wilderness'* and famous "maze" is a very popular place with the young Londoner. He can get there by road, rail, or river, and there is much to bo said in favour of each route. On a fine week-end the Thames in Richmond and Hampton district® is a study in British democracy. All sorts and conditions of men and women arc there, and every known kind of river craft may be encountered if a " water picnic" is the day's programme. Ask the average Londoner what he knows about Hampton Court and to whom it belongs and he probably will be quite uncertain. He will hazard that the London County Council is the controlling authority, but he will tell you .at once of the wonders of tho maze and that there are vines in tho gardens "hundreds" of years old. As a matter of fact, there is a famous vine, planted in 1768. of which London is as proud as is Sydney of ono planted in Parramatta 22 years later. A High Honour. Yet Hampton Court Palace has a history, and though it is no longer occupied by royalty, residence therein is only by royal consent. As is generallv known, it is occupied by men and women who have either rendered the State some special service or who have a name in arts and science. To be given quarters at Hampton Court is a high honour, though there is very little "limelight" about any action is this direction. The main approach to this ex-royal residence is through an avenue of chestnut trees a mile in length in Bushey Park. On "Chestnut Sunday" tens of thousands make the trip to see the beautiful old trees in flower. And what a sight they are! The men who built the palace and laid out the grounds had an eye for beauty and the picturesque. They built and planted for the future more perhaps than for the present, and the people of today who now enjoy the result of their vision and enterprise have much to thank them for. It was, of course, the very nature of the Englishman of old to make a castle of his home atid to plant shrubs and trees. That is T*hy rural England even in 1 these post-war days is like a great park. No other country is quite like it. Indeed, no other country has the same appeal, the! Sam% attraction, to | the colonial. How tho early colonists came to leave such a beautiful country and to brave the unknown in a new and i savage country on the other side of the i globe and to make the journey in cockleshell boats with scant accommodation, salt food, and no facilities «r privacy or comforts for the womenfolk is an unending source of surprise to the visitor to England to-day. The explanation is that our forbears were of rare courage and grit, and fired with a desire to build up their fortunes to a new country and incidentally found another colony. In Cardinal Wolsey's Say. Hampton Court is no mean building. Built of warm red brick, with its main gateway retaining something of a fortress-like approach there is a dignity in the simplicity, almost severity, of the design that is most impressive. It is admittedly one of the finest specimens of Tudor architecture. The two ' original wings are all that remain of the palace Cardinal Wolsey erected - when ho was basking in royal favour. A little over 400 years ■ ago, in 1515, Henry VIII. "presented" Wolsey with | the lease of some land that belonged 'to the "Knights Hospitaller." Six years later the building, then unsurpassed f.or its magnificence was called by "Wolsey in a letter to the King "your manor," and though Wolsey i lived at Hampton until 1528 it appears that Henry had claimed ownership at least two years previously. After Wolsey's fall Henry VIII. lived at Hampton, and added the Great Hall and the chapel. His daughter, Queen Elizabeth, stayed there fre--1 quently. She increased the improvements to the gardens that even then had a reputation beyond the capital. A foreign ambassador, describing his reception at the palace by tho Queen, speaks of the gardens as r "most pleasing, with rosemary so planted and nailed to the •stalls as to cover them entirely, a method extremely common in England." It is practically certain that Shakespeare's King Henry VUL was acted in those gardens, and that the "gentle Will" was himself a member of the cast. King James I. tried to use the mellowing influence of Hampton Court to bring harmony between the established churches of England and Scotland, but theology and horticulture would not mix. Under the Stuarts. Charles I. loved the retreat. He had the canal to the river made so that the royal barge might come and go with as much or little publicity as the King or his gourtiers saw lit. Later, when troubles were black, the palace was actually disposed of by Charles, but Oliver Cromwell annulled the sale, and when the Eestoration took place Hampton Court was once more a royal residence, and remained so until the reign of George 11. It . suffered some vicissitudes. By the time William 111. reigned only two of the five original quadrangles remained. William called in the great Sir Christopher Wren, the architect of St. Paul's, who designed the third that is still in existence. It is to the same King William that the quaintly precise lay-out of the palace gardens is due. He had the Dntchman's love of orderliness, and this extended to gardens as well as to statecraft. He found irregular percolations from the canal of Charles I. all over tho grounds and had them straightened and fountains erected. Avenues of trees run out from tho extensive and beautiful lawns like the spokes of a wheeL A sunken Italian garden adds distinction to the environs of the palace. The maze attracts the • attention of the curious. Borders of seasonable flowers provide colour and interest to the visitor, who is loath to leave such beautiful surroundings even to inspect tho interior of the stately old palace. (To be continued.)