A Day at Windsor Castle & Hampton Court Palace – Part 1

My first day trip out of London didn’t go too far out. In fact, Hampton Court is in a London suburb, so not even officially outside of London for that portion of the day.

Our tour guide was impeccably dressed, perfectly coiffed, and closely shaved except for the handlebar mustache which he frequently stroked (when he wasn’t checking on the perfection of his hair, which never moved one millimeter). He had a Hungarian accent (sounding somewhat like Bela Lugosi) and referred to us all as “my lovelies”.

He didn’t have much to do. At Windsor, once we parked the coach (a large one that could hold about 45 people; he was not driving) in the car park, he led us through the town and to the castle, gave us our tickets , told us when to be back on the coach and set us free for about two hours. At Hampton Court Palace, it was pretty much the same. The coach dropped us off; he told us what time to meet back there; and then we were on our own for about three hours. I guess his job was just to look handsome and perfect and make sure he didn’t lose anybody (he did do a head count when we were back on the coach before signaling the driver that we could leave).

I have to say that I was relieved that we weren’t going to be herded around from room to room in a crowd and have to strain to hear what was being said. Many years ago when Mom and I had been to Windsor Castle and Hampton Court Palace before, that had been the case. At Windsor, no photos are allowed inside, so being in the middle of a throng of people wasn’t as bad as at Hampton Court. There photos were allowed and masses of people could make taking decent ones difficult.

Before leaving for Windsor, we stopped in South Kensington by the Royal Albert Hall. This is a round concert hall that can seat over 5,000. It was opened in 1871 as part of a memorial to Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, who had died about ten years earlier. The other part of the memorial is just across the street from the hall in Kensington Gardens and is called the Albert Memorial.

Around one of the sides of the Albert Memorial is a lovely building that was used as Mister Selfridge’s house in the TV series “Mister Selfridge”. The series was about the Selfridge & Company department store in London.

At Windsor, the Queen was in residence, so security was tight. The castle was originally built in the 11^th century by William the Conqueror and is the longest-occupied palace in Europe.  Mom and I had been there in 1991 before the enormous fire of 1992. I was very interested in seeing how everything had been restored. Being a fan of dolls houses however, I stopped off to see Queen Mary’s Dollhouse first. Then I headed upstairs to the State Rooms.

Each room had a sign telling about the room. The ones which had been damaged by the fire also had photos of the damage so we could see how much work needed to be done to get the room back to what it had been before. They had staff in each room to answer any questions that people might have. The main thing was that I could take my time and really see what each room was about. My previous visit had all been a blur of glimpses of the rooms through the crowds.

One of the rooms that had been badly damaged in the fire was Saint George’s Hall, which is essentially the Great Hall. The room is enormous and the entire roof had collapsed. The discovery was made that the ceiling had been a false one and the room originally had a much higher and grander ceiling. The decision was made not to restore the hall entirely as it was, but to take it back to the medieval period when the original ceiling had been visible. Wow! The result was amazing!

I had quite a chat with a staff member who was just inside when I walked in and my jaw dropped. She walked over to me as I was saying “wow!” out loud. So we talked about how we both like the hall so much better now, despite the fact that it was beautiful and impressive before the fire. She then asked if I knew who the monarchs were whose paintings were on the wall. I responded by starting to name them. We both laughed when I said, “then all the Georges.” The first painting in the line was of James I, so I hadn’t named them all from William the Conqueror – just the Stuarts.

Although I couldn’t take any photos and I usually use only photos I took myself in this blog, I have included here three photos of Saint George’s Hall that were taken by others to show what the hall looked like before the fire, with the fire damage, and after restoration.

When I got back outside, the Queen’s Band was playing. I managed to take video and a photo while listening. This was an added benefit of being there while the Queen was in residence.

St George’s Chapel also doesn’t allow photography inside. There was a black marble slab in the middle of the aisle, which you might have seen if you watched the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan. The slab says that, in a vault beneath it, are the remains of Jane Seymour (Henry VIII’s third wife, who died shortly after giving birth to his only son, Edward), Henry VIII, Charles I, and an infant of Queen Anne.

Poor Queen Anne had 18 children die. Just the one stillborn child was buried at Windsor. All of the others were buried at Westminster Abbey. Some were miscarriages, some still births, some died while still infants. Only one made it out of infancy as far as age eleven. Imagine.

I had lunch at the Victorian train station. They had several cafes and sandwich shops to choose from. Then I made my way back to the car park via a bridge from the railway station over the train tracks. Our tour guide was very happy to see all of his lovelies back to the coach on time and we set off for Hampton Court.

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