Hampton Court Palace

Cardinal Wolsey built the palace and gave it to Henry VIII in 1529 in a failed attempt to keep his position, and Henry expanded it enormously: the Great Hall with its hammerbeam roof, the Chapel Royal still in use, and the Tudor kitchens, which fed six hundred people twice a day and are staffed in period on some days with fires lit. William III and Mary II had Wren add a baroque wing from 1689, intending to demolish the Tudor palace entirely and running out of money before they could, which is why the building has two completely different halves meeting at an awkward join. The maze, planted around 1700, is the oldest hedge maze in Britain, and the gardens run to sixty acres with a Tudor real tennis court still played on.

What you actually see

• The Tudor kitchens - working fires and period cooking on some days.
• The Great Hall - Henry VIII's hammerbeam roof and Flemish tapestries.
• The Wren baroque wing - state apartments meeting the Tudor palace at a visible join.
• The maze - the oldest surviving hedge maze in the country.

When to go

April to September for the gardens; the Hampton Court Garden Festival in July fills the grounds. Winter is quiet and the palace interiors are the focus. Costumed interpretation runs on set days.

Honest expectations

The site is very large and a full visit takes most of a day with a lot of walking. Tickets are expensive, particularly for families, and booking online is cheaper. The maze is small and takes about twenty minutes.

Nearby

Bushy Park with its deer is across the road; Kingston and Richmond lie upriver.