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.
Catherine Howard: History and the Use of Adjectives
11 February 2022
On the anniversary of the execution of Catherine Howard, Henry VIII’s fifth wife and Queen, Collections Curator Brett Dolman investigates how difficult it is to reconstruct and understand her life. Bringing the past alive is part of what historians are expected to do, but how far should we go to tell a good story?
New Year's Day and the Tudors: A Lesson in Celebrations
17 December 2021
Chief Curator Tracy Borman explains that for the Tudors the party was only just getting started...and she's got a personal reason for agreeing with them.
A Queer Walk through Hampton Court Palace
11 February 2021
When you next visit Hampton Court, bring a queer eye to the palace. Shift your perception. Actively look around you. I promise there is a rich history to find.
Creating your own wildflower garden
27 April 2020
You don't need large expanses of land to make your own wildflower meadow providing cover and food for wildlife. Following the success of our wildflowers at Kensington Palace, this year we planted a new wildflower meadow at Hampton Court. You too can do the same with any old patch of lawn in an open, sunny position.
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.
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.
The colourful history of the cornices and corbels: Secrets of a State Bed
06 November 2019
As conservation work continues on Queen Caroline's State bed, Conservator Beatrice Farmer describes the small details and considerations involved in conserving the textile elements of the bed such as the cornices and corbels - from how to remove old patches to finding the best materials and colours to match the original item.
Hampton Court's worst enemy: how we deal with the mealybug
21 October 2019
At Hampton Court we look after 60 acres of formal gardens and hundreds of thousands of plants, making these mealybug pests some of our worst enemies.