The Rose Garden
The Fountain Garden
The Privy Garden
The Rose Garden
The Fountain Garden
The Privy Garden
Hampton Court and Home Park, KT8, lie in a loop of the Thames between East Molesy and Kingston upon Thames. They are separated by Hampton Court Road from Bushy Park which lies to its north. The village of Hampton itself lies a little way to the west of the palace.
The grounds of Hampton Court Palace and the adjacent Home Park were once part of the estate of the Palace. Today they are treated as two separate entities, covering 280 hectares.Most of the grounds lay to the east and north of the palace; the other sides are now built up and were originally staff quarters.
They were designed as formal landscapes in the original European style.To the east of Hampton Court Palace there are the famous clipped and shaped yews. These lie in a radiating pattern, leading away from the palace, and forming the core of the immense landscape feature of the goose-foot (patte d'oie) of avenues radiating out to the east from the palace. This can be seen clearly in the aerial photograph. The central avenue is emphasized by its extension to the Long Water, a formal straight canal over 1 km long, leading away from the house through the Home Park.
The larger part of the park, to the east of the house, was originally a deer park. It is separated from the palace gardens by a set of narrow canals, and the deer park also includes some other lakes. Much of it is now taken up with a golf course to the south of the Long Water.These are the grounds to the north and west of the palace, which can be accessed by the public free of charge.
To the north of the Palace is what remains of the Wilderness, created by William III. It includes the famous Hampton Court Maze. Adjacent to it are other gardens, with trees, hedges, and spring flower meadows. There is also the Laburnum Walk, a covered walk with laburnum trees trained over an trellis, and a 'must see' each May.The area once laid out as the Tiltyard by Henry VIII is now occupied by the Rose Garden and herbaceous borders. The rose garden is a spectacular show of roses each summer.
The Formal Gardens are mostly to the east and south of the palace, and require payment for entry in summer.
On the east of the palace, the landscape is dominated by the focal point of the 'goosefoot'. These are are the lawns with the famous shaped yews, some of them interspersed with bedding displays. The bedding displays, though very good in their own right, seem rather out of scale with the huge landscape. Against the palace walls, and against the walls that separate the formal gardens from the public gardens, there are impressive long herbaceous borders.The gardens on the south of the palace include the Privy Garden, and the smaller gardens of the Knot Garden, and the Pond Gardens. Today all of these are intensively maintained formal show gardens, restored for their historical interest. Much of the detail of them can be seen in the aerial photographs.
These formal gardens also include the Great Vine, one of the largest and oldest grape-vine plants known, in its own glasshouse, which is now large enough to produce about a quarter ton of grapes each year. It is a significant attraction in its own right, though visitors are restricted to viewing through glass.The grounds and the palace are well known for being the original home of Cardinal Wolsey, and for the jealousy of Henry VIII which led him to confiscate the estate.
The original gardens developed by Wolsey were in the area of the modern Formal Gardens of the palace.The development of the modern gardens started with Henry, and was continued under later monarchs. This includes the Fountain Garden, on the east side of the palace, at the focus of the goosefoot.
The Long Water was created in the time of Charles II, and was planted with its enclosing avenues of lime trees.Many of the gardens were further developed in the time of William III.
Following a fire in 1986, a major restoration of both the palace and the grounds took place. The gardens were renovated in their original styles during the 1990s. The Privy Garden has been restored sing the same plants and designs that were used when it was first planted by William III.The northern part of the original estate is now Bushy Park.
There are charges for entrance to parts of the gardens of Hampton Court, while there is no charge for entrance to the Home Park. The extent of the area charged for may vary with the season.
Home Park is used every July for the Hampton Court Flower show.The palace and park is managed by the Historic Royal Palaces. There is a community group, the Friends of Bushy and Home Parks who run a number of activities in Hampton Court Park, and in Bushy Park which is separated from Home Park by a roadway.