Hampton Court Palace

Where it sits. Hampton Court stands on the north bank of the Thames at East Molesey, about twelve miles upstream of central London in the borough of Richmond upon Thames. The approach from the station crosses Hampton Court Bridge and delivers the west front head-on: Tudor brick laid in dark diaper patterns, octagonal turrets, and the Great Gatehouse in the middle. Sixty acres of formal gardens and several hundred more of park lie behind and to the east, with the river running along the southern boundary.

The story behind it. Cardinal Thomas Wolsey took the lease in 1514 and built a palace grand enough to embarrass his king, then handed it to Henry VIII in 1529 as his own position collapsed. Henry more than doubled it, adding the Great Hall between 1532 and 1535 with its hammerbeam roof, the Great Watching Chamber, the Chapel Royal with a blue and gold vault of 1535–36, and kitchens that could feed a court of six hundred twice a day. The astronomical clock of 1540 in Clock Court, made by Nicholas Oursian, still shows the hour, the month, the phase of the moon and the time of high water at London Bridge — genuinely useful when the river was the road to Westminster. Five of Henry's six wives lived here; Jane Seymour bore Edward VI at the palace and died days later in 1537. From 1689 William III and Mary II employed Christopher Wren to replace the Tudor work with a Baroque palace; he got as far as the Fountain Court and the King's and Queen's Apartments before Mary's death from smallpox in 1694 stopped the money, which is why the building is famously two palaces welded together. George II was the last monarch to live here, and Victoria opened it to the public in 1838.

On screen. In Bridgerton, Hampton Court is the exterior of St James's Palace, the working royal residence for most of George III's reign and therefore the address the show's debutantes are presented at. The opening sequence of carriages sweeping into a courtyard on the way to Queen Charlotte's presentation was filmed here. The prequel, Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, leaned on the palace far harder, using Master Carpenter's Court, Base Court, Clock Court, Fountain Court, the King's Staircase and the gardens; between them these supplied interiors for Buckingham House and both interiors and exteriors for St James's Palace, so a great deal of what looks like two separate royal residences on screen is one building shot from different sides. The palace's wider filmography is long and includes The Favourite, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Wolf Hall and The Young Victoria.

What you actually see today. The route splits between Henry's palace and William's, and it is worth doing both to feel the join. On the Tudor side: Base Court, the Great Hall hung with the Abraham tapestries, the Chapel Royal still in use for services, the Great Watching Chamber, and the kitchens with fires lit and costumed staff cooking to sixteenth-century method. On the Baroque side: Wren's Fountain Court, the King's Staircase painted by Antonio Verrio with the gods of Olympus, the King's Apartments, and the Queen's Apartments finished later for George II's family. Outside, the Privy Garden has been restored to its 1702 planting, the Great Fountain Garden carries its clipped yews, and the Great Vine — a black Hamburg planted in 1768 under Capability Brown's supervision — still crops several hundred bunches of grapes each year, sold in the shop in season. The hedge maze, planted around 1700, is the oldest surviving in Britain and takes about twenty minutes to solve if you keep one hand on the hedge; the real tennis court beside it, roofed and walled in the medieval manner, is still played on by a club whose game predates the lawn version by centuries. The Wilderness beyond fills with a million daffodils and crocuses in March, and the Rose Garden occupies what was Henry VIII's tiltyard, where jousting took place under the surviving brick tower.

Getting there and timing. Hampton Court station is about thirty-five minutes from London Waterloo, then a five-minute walk over the bridge. Riverboats run from Westminster and Richmond in summer and take most of a day. Tickets are sold by Historic Royal Palaces and the gardens can be visited separately in winter, when the courtyards hold an ice rink. Allow a full day; four hours is the minimum that makes sense. Ground-floor routes and the gardens are largely step-free, but the state apartments involve substantial staircases and the Tudor kitchens have uneven floors.