Insights and behind the scenes from our palaces
Protecting wildlife and their habitat at Home Park
22 November 2024
Park Ranger Eleanor Evetts explores the importance of nature conservation efforts at Home Park at Hampton Court Palace.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu: Georgian Feminism, sexual-fluidity and disease
21 February 2020
To celebrate LGBT History Month, we are exploring some of the lives and loves of LGBT+ people at the palaces throughout history. This week we learn from Holly Marsden, Queer History placement student, about the life of one of Georgian society's most fascinating women: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.
Queer Lives at the Tower: The LGBT+ Stories that were almost on the tours
07 February 2020
Queer Lives at the Tower, our new LGBT+ tours at the Tower of London are just a couple of weeks away, and the team are rehearsing to deliver a bold and new experience. However, there are some stories that didn’t quite make the cut. I’m going to tell you them here, to see what they tell us about how we work with LGBT+ history.
Conservation and discoveries in our paper collections
06 February 2020
We have around 25,000 works of art on paper in Historic Royal Palaces' collection. While many are on display, the vast majority are held in storage. These are delicate items and it's essential to conserve and store them correctly in order to preserve them for posterity.
Six mattresses for a Queen: Secrets of a State Bed
30 January 2020
As conservation work continues on Queen Caroline's State bed, Conservator Beatrice Farmer shares discoveries on the lavish silk-covered mattresses, including one that appears to be an impostor. The bed is part of the Royal Collection, and can usually be found on display at Hampton Court Palace.
A discovery on the lining: Secrets of A State Bed
08 January 2020
Queen Caroline's state bed has three upper inner valances. These decorative drapes are attached to the inside the wooden bed frame, to hide the bed frame and give a decorative border to the tester or canopy. They are made from silk damask decorated with silk braid and lined with plain silk. Linings are not usually the most exciting or important part of a textile, but these ones turned out to be far more interesting than we thought.
Mistletoe in the Hampton Court Palace Gardens
20 December 2019
One of the most popular questions posed to our gardeners during winter concerns strange lumps of weed growing in trees in the East Front garden. These random and odd-looking growths are in fact clumps of mistletoe.
New life for the glasshouse at Hillsborough Castle
20 December 2019
It's been an exceptionally busy year for the gardens team at Hillsborough Castle, with the doors to the extensive estate thrown open to the public every day for the first time. Time has also been found to transform the glasshouse, a modest but attractive corner of the gardens that had long been overlooked.
The art of botanical watercolours: meet the Hampton Court Florilegium Society
06 December 2019
One of the newer collections in the Historic Royal Palaces archives is a large group of botanical watercolours, on both paper and vellum, painted by the Hampton Court Florilegium society. The society aims to establish an archive of botanically accurate paintings and drawings of the plants that are growing in the palace gardens each year.
Festooned with Mystery: Wall Paintings at the Banqueting House
07 November 2019
An investigation into some mysterious mural paintings in the Banqueting House took place with a scaffold built for conservators to inspect the often overlooked wall paintings just beneath the magnificent ceiling.