THE GREAT HALL, HAMPTON COURT
Sir Frank Baines, late Director of Works at H. M. Office of Works, read a paper on King Henry VIII’s Hall at Hampton. Court Palace at a meeting of the London Society last week, dealing principally with the great oak roof and its wonderful carving, which he had special opportunities of examining at close quarters when supervising its reparation necessitated by the ravages of the death watch beetle and fungoid growth. The paper was illustrated by a large number of lantern slides. Some excerpts from the lecture are given under.
Upon Cardinal Wolsey’s banishment to Esher in 1529, the King took possession of Hampton Court and
converted the lease into a freehold; and shortly after commenced extending, and in part rebuilding, the Cardinal’s Palace. One of the most important sections of the work undertaken by King Henry VIII was the Great Hall, about which I intend to speak to you this evening.
The Cardinal had constructed a great wall about the Palace, enclosing its precincts, and had instituted a special supply of pure spring water by bringing it a distance of four miles from springs at Coombe Hill; great lengths of the old lead conduits still remain underground. He also instituted a system of great brick sewers for drainage into the Thames — much of which remain to this day.
THE GREAT HALL, HAMPTON COURT: INTERIOR.
Sir Frank Baines, late Director of Works at H. M. Office of Works, read a paper on King Henry VIII’s Hall at Hampton. Court Palace at a meeting of the London Society last week, dealing principally with the great oak roof and its wonderful carving, which he had special opportunities of examining at close quarters when supervising its reparation necessitated by the ravages of the death watch beetle and fungoid growth. The paper was illustrated by a large number of lantern slides. Some excerpts from the lecture are given under.
Upon Cardinal Wolsey’s banishment to Esher in 1529, the King took possession of Hampton Court and
converted the lease into a freehold; and shortly after commenced extending, and in part rebuilding, the Cardinal’s Palace. One of the most important sections of the work undertaken by King Henry VIII was the Great Hall, about which I intend to speak to you this evening.
The Cardinal had constructed a great wall about the Palace, enclosing its precincts, and had instituted a special supply of pure spring water by bringing it a distance of four miles from springs at Coombe Hill; great lengths of the old lead conduits still remain underground. He also instituted a system of great brick sewers for drainage into the Thames — much of which remain to this day.
THE GREAT HALL, HAMPTON COURT: INTERIOR.