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(More customer reviews)I have to admit a weakness for coffee-table books about palaces, stately homes etc, but this sumptuous, oversize volume is among the better ones of the genre. It is a detailed history of Hampton Court Palace - its origins, construction, additions, renovations, decoration and gardens, but also it touches on the lives and motivations of its people - builders and architects, kings and princes, bureaucrats and functionaries, tenants and visitors.
Richly illustrated with floor plans, drawings, paintings, prints, portraits, and photographs, this account of Hampton Court brings the story of the famous palace up to the 21st century.
When I last visited Hampton Court a quarter century ago, both house and gardens were looking decidedly shabby and, apparently, it got much worse before it got better. Tourists were passing it up in droves. Scandalous mismanagement, including a 3 million pound contractor fraud, dismantled fire detectors and gateways too narrow for fire engines, led up to a disastrous fire in 1986 and resulted in 2 deaths.
Although this is a serious work, one (unintentionally?) hilarious episode described in the book is the comic-opera visit to view the fire damage by the then Secretary of State for the Environment (& the man ultimately responsible for Hampton Court), Nicolas Ridley. Ridley, a chain smoker, his wife who was claustrophobic and ten other dignitaries were descending in the lift when it jammed between floors; the emergency manual door-opening device failed to function; the elevator maintenance man could not be located. Two hours later the Fire Brigade forced the doors open with a hydraulic jack. Heads rolled afterward - if only metaphorically.
New schemes have since been put in place for restoration and refurbishment, for improved property management and to enhance the attractions of the historic old palace for new generations of visitors.
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Hampton Court-probably Britain's most important secular historicbuilding complex-was a center of court life and politics from the latefifteenth to the middle of the eighteenth century. It was also a placeof architectural innovation and the site of the most ambitious formalgardens ever built in Britain. This book offers the first history inover a century of Hampton Court, its gardens, and its parks. Lavishlyillustrated, the book brings to life the entire history of thebuilding, including the terrible fire of 1986 and thetwentieth-century opening of the complex to the public. Simon Thurley,the unrivalled authority on Hampton Court's architecture, interiordecoration, and history, sets the building in political and socialcontext. He explores the lives and motivations of its builders,telling the stories of the architects and others who fulfilled thewhims of kings and princes. In addition to throwing light on thecharacter of court life, the book makes important new attributions toarchitects Hugh May, Nicholas Hawksmoor, William Talman, ColenCampbell, Edward Blore, and others.
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