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| Front entrance. My picture. You will note the different griffins or lions. All below are my pix! |
My trip with Mr. DeLand from inner London to Hampton Court was just such a train journey.
The Tudor period is fascinating but not my Fave. It's filled with characters like Henry VIII whose actions and hubris boggle the imagination. Some places I visit show me the character of the person who lived there.
Hampton Court Palace certainly did that for me and I want to tell you and how and why in words and pictures!
Did you think that King Henry VIII had gout because he ate only meat? Drank too much wine? Ate too few vegetables?
You would be so right. Visiting Hampton Court on my last trip to England and listening to the audio tour proved the rumor of Henry's gourmand sensibilities. True, he had at his court hundreds of courtiers who needed to be fed. True, he was zealous when it came to watching them to see they remained loyal. (All those tiny eaves' droppers in the rafters are rather frightening...and made me wonder if someone had installed inside them small CCTV cameras.) True, the number of servants required to feed such an entourage was daunting.
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| More griffins! |
Why pies?
Pie with crusts serves as a convenient means of serving hundreds of people quickly and efficiently. They can be composed of all vital ingredients, packed together into a savory self-contained meal, baked easily together, cooled easily and dispensed just as easily. Servants could quickly grab a pie, eat it and get on with their duties. And unlike the way we eat pie today, they would discard the crusts, lick their fingers (note necessarily wash them!) and march onward!
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| The huge roasting spit at work today! The pokers sticking out at an angle show the different positions of the racks. Men turned the spits and many weretrained for years at the art of roasting a side of meat. |
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| Queen Caroline by Joseph Highmore |
She was well loved, initially by her cantankerous husband, and later by her people.
I was intrigued to learn that Hampton Court is run by a private foundation, not the Crown. A marvelous short excursion for you from London, this 30 minute trip to Hampton Court offers you a wonderful tour of the house and grounds, a glimpse of two periods in which the house was occupied by royalty—and a scrumptious tea shop with gloriously steaming, creamy hot potato soup and home made bread! (Other items, too. But on the cold day we were there, this fare hit the spot.) And as for that gentleman I brought home with me to consult on future novels?
He's having a wonderful time listening to Rhianna and watching all the James Bond flicks. I cannot get him away from the political coverage. His advice is simply to have our prime minister dismiss all those running as nincompoops. I keep telling him we have no p.m., but he thinks I'm mad when I speak of a president and congressmen elected by the people. "There's your problem," he tells me. "Clean house. Put in a parliament. Then they all have to find a way to get along."
I'm sticking to writing romances, I have oft told him. I need info on that. But he's insistent that he knows nothing of love. The man needs a wife. I can see it in his blue, blue eyes.
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| Henry's kitchens: Oh, the pies! A lot of them, too! |
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| Pots for making soups and stews, cooked over grills! |
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| The storage room for the plate. Each piece was counted after every meal. No theft here! |
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| Henry's wine cellar. Dark, cool and full. |
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| The second addition to the Palace is this Georgian period wing, all lovely symmetry outside. Inside, the walls are dark walnut, the appointments dazzling silver and the atmosphere, secretive and murky. |
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| The emblem of the castle and Tudors outside the entrance to the Chapel Royal. |
