WYNE CELLAR IN HAMPTON COURT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17905, 22 July 1926, Page 7

WYNE CELLAR IN HAMPTON COURT.

ECONOMY DOOR SHUTS OUT THE GENERAL PUBLIC. (Special to the “Star.”) LONDON, June 3. Visitors to Hampton Court are voicing a grievance. Owing to the necessity for keeping down the estimates for expenses of the Roval Palaces, it has been found impossible to keep the tentative promise of last year to open to the public the delightful Tudor " YYvne Cellar ” of Henry VIII., underneath the Great Watching Chamber. Mr Ernest Law, of the Pavilion. Hampton Court, has made the studv of the palace his life-long hobby, and thinks it might have been bet'er if ‘ne Office of Works had kept to their 'ntention. “ The cost of opening the Wvne Cellar,” he said, “ would be only a matter of a few hundred pounds, and the experience of last year, when the Tudor kitchens, with their origi .al serving hatches, fireplaces, and roasting spits, were thrown open to the public. shows that a very small charge for admission would soon recoup whatever outlay was necessary. “ The Wvne Cellar, a wonderful showplace. is exactly as it was in the time of Henry YIII., for the few modern partitions have now been removed. " Adjoining it is the ' Drvnkynge Howse,’ the old Palace ‘ Bar,' where Shakespeare and his colleagues in the Royal service got their gallon of good ale each (lay, and the Rhenish wine which was part of their perquisites as players to the Royal Household. “ From the historic point of view, and as an example of Tudor domestic architecture, there is nothing in Europe to compare with these wonderful rooms of the sixteenth century , and the extent to which the publi - patronised the part of Old Harapt n Court which was opened last cepr convinces me that the Wvne Cellar would provide an equally profitable ‘ gate.' ’’