[CHAPTER VIII.]
HAMPTON COURT TO RICHMOND.
Hampton Court—Thames Ditton: The “Swan”—The Church—Surbiton—Kingston: The Coronation Stone—Teddington—Twickenham—Eel Pie Island—Petersham—Richmond Park—Approach to Richmond.
HAMPTON COURT is not the stateliest pile upon the banks of Thames. It is less splendid than Windsor, less historic than the Tower; yet it possesses a meed of human interest unique in English palaces. Windsor has its memories of the births and deaths of kings; of proud embassies from Popes and Kaisers while yet the censer was swinging through all England; of sweet brides wedded to the misery which is always lurking behind a throne. The Tower is the most historic building which the world still looks upon—the very kernel of England’s history, even as the Chapter House of Westminster is the birthplace of her liberties; in the darkness and silence of its dungeons was matured that intolerance of despotism, that resolve for freedom which began early to mould the modern England; it is a fortress of unending tragedies. Yet Hampton Court, which is newer than either and less historic than either, enjoys a popularity and exercises a charm far beyond that of the two feudal fortresses. The explanation of this which fashions itself when one is in romantic mood, is that the popular imagination is touched by the sidereal rise, the brief glory, and the sudden fall of Cardinal Wolsey—a fall which even the gift of the stately palace itself could not avert. But the footprints of Wolsey at Hampton Court are hard to trace; and it is probable that to the Bank Holiday masses, and to the crowds which stream through its galleries every fine Saturday and Sunday in summer, the most abounding charm of the place is that which Nature, with some assistance from Art, has provided. The terraces, the gardens, the maze, the trim vistas cut through long lines of trees, the Dutch primness and precision of the grounds, and above all the thousand acres of Bushey Park, with its renowned avenue bursting with the tinted blossom which in summer perfumes the air like “an odour sweet of cedar log and sandal wood,” are the true delights of Hampton Court.
The old Tudor palace is a significant landmark of the river-side, for it indicates the spot where suburban London may be said to begin. London has a long arm, and the voyager on the silent highway from its source on towards the sea finds, as he nears Hampton Court, unmistakable signs that he is reaching the fringe of a giant population. There is a greater frequency of white villas, glistening in the sunlight, shaded and cooled by the ample foliage which is rarely so green and prolific as on the banks of the southern Thames, the water gently lapping the edges of the shaven lawns. The river is dotted with boats, where before the dinghy and the outrigger had been but occasional; the towing-path is more populated; and—it is a melancholy story to tell—the water begins perceptibly to lose its limpidity. The pollution of the great rivers of the world seems to be one of the ultimate aims of civilisation. Is the Scheldt pure—the weird mysterious Scheldt of the “Flying Dutchman”—the storied Rhine, the classic Tiber, the “blue” Danube? Its immense navigation and the multitudes on its banks put the Thames into worse case than them all; but we trust the time is coming when we shall be more mindful of Nature’s lovely heritage, and that if we may never again see salmon taken at London Bridge, neither shall we see banks of festering mud on the very limits of the tide.
Hampton Court has been frequently described as the English Versailles, and there is much reason in the comparison. Alike in history and in human interest, however, Hampton Court is far more attractive than the splendidly frigid palace of Louis Quatorze. It is true that it has few pretensions to magnificence; but it is a compound of history, and the history of people rather than of events. The shades of Wolsey and Charles I. eternally haunt the portals through which so many historic figures have passed. But the ghost of the magnificent cardinal finds everything unfamiliar. Even the Great Hall, so often ascribed to him, was not built until after his death; Sir Christopher Wren’s new west front is all strange to him; only in a little wing here and there can he recognise the handicraft of his own architect. Maybe the capacious cellar, with its wine-casks stuffed with broad pieces of gold, which, if we are to believe tradition the cardinal used for a treasury, is still untouched; but where are the five “fair courts” round which the palace was grouped by its builder? Had Hampton Court remained to our day precisely as it left the hands of the Tudor artificers, it would have been a priceless relic of the architecture and the methods of life affected by an English prince of the Church in the early years of the sixteenth century. But Wren has done his incongruous and Nash his clumsy work upon what Henry allowed to remain of the cardinal’s design, and Hampton Court, as we know it, has, architecturally speaking, a blind side and a smiling side. There is no doubt a certain stateliness about the East Front and the Fountain Court; but it is a heavy and monumental stateliness which ill accords with the really picturesque portions of the old palace. Classical symmetry and Palladian regularity are sadly misplaced when joined to Tudor red brick. The style which Wren chose for his additions requires greater space for its effective display than he had at disposal; consequently, the buildings round the Fountain Court suffer from the contracted area of the quadrangle. English brickwork was never better than in the early part of the sixteenth century, and in the buildings erected by Wolsey and Henry VIII. at Hampton Court we have this Tudor brickwork at its best. The cardinal’s buildings have upon the outer walls the geometrical patterns which were not uncommon at the time, formed by the insertion of those stout blue bricks which are so potent to resist damp. Of the strictly modern additions and re-buildings, the work of the last hundred and fifty years, it were better to say nothing more than that they, lamentably, still exist.
ENTRANCE PORCH.