Turning back for a time to Anne Boleyn’s Gateway we may follow the steps up to the Great Hall, and entering from beneath the Minstrels’ Gallery at a doorway through an elaborately carven screen, we see at once before us one of the finest and most impressive of Tudor halls—very similar to but not quite so large as that of Christ Church at Oxford. Whether we look up towards the dais as we enter from under the Minstrels’ Gallery, or whether standing on the dais—raised but a few inches from the general level of the hall—we look back towards the Minstrels’ Gallery and the blue west window above it—it is a grand and pleasing view that we get. The tapestried walls, the high windows, and the fine Perpendicular hammer-beam roof together form a magnificent and pleasing whole, one of the noblest halls of its period that the country has to show. The tapestries, in which are depicted incidents in the life of Abraham—though time has dimmed somewhat the splendour of their colouring—are yet remarkable links with Tudor times, for they were purchased by Henry the Eighth and have remained at Hampton Court ever since the period of their acquisition. Though much restoration was done in the middle of last century the general character of the whole was not interfered with. Then it was that the stained glass was put in—to replace that which had presumably been destroyed during the times “when civil dudgeon first grew high and men fell out they knew not why”—and we may well be grateful that the taste displayed in doing so was on the whole so well displayed, though the garish blue of the western window above the Minstrels’ Gallery is perhaps an exception to that taste. The great oriel window at the southern end of the dais, with the beautiful groining above cannot fail to attract attention, and looking back from the dais down the Hall we may notice the elaboration and richness of the magnificent roof, which is acknowledged to be probably the most splendid roof of the kind ever erected in England.
Though we see the Hall to-day with but a few sightseers in it, it needs no great effort of imagination to repeople it with figures of the past; to recall the time when it was a centre of Tudor revellings, or when King James sat in his chair by the great oriel or Bay Window and saw the “goddesses” descend from the “heaven” above the Minstrels’ Gallery to carry on their masquings below. At the farther end of the dais is a door, now covered over, leading to the antechamber known as the Horn Room.
A doorway in the eastern end of the Hall from the centre of the dais gives into the Great Watching Chamber which runs at right angles to it. This also is one of Henry the Eighth’s contributions to the Palace, and with its richly ornamented roof, its wonderfully elaborate old tapestries may be regarded as one of the most fascinating and interesting parts of it. Indeed, if we except the Great Hall itself, this is the most remarkable part of the Tudor edifice that remains. According to an old engraving it was in this chamber that Cardinal Wolsey entertained the French ambassadors at the sumptuous banquet referred to earlier.
The tapestries here, representing the Triumphs of Renown, Time, and Fate, are particularly interesting as they form part of a series bought by Cardinal Wolsey in 1523 and have been hanging at Hampton Court for close upon four hundred years. They are old Flemish work, and should be supplemented by three others if the set were complete. These wonderful examples of ancient “art needlework” are the more interesting from the fact of their being links with the original Palace. It should be remembered to Cromwell’s credit that, though they were duly valued as among the available Crown assets, he refused to permit of their removal, and thus we have in them one of the most notable links with the gorgeous past of Hampton Court. At the farther end of the Great Watching Chamber is a small room—the Horn Room—with stairs leading down to the cloisters and kitchens, and with the closed doorway giving on to the northern end of the dais in the Great Hall.
Before passing on into the Orange part of the buildings, the State Rooms and Picture Galleries, we may retrace our steps to the outer court, at the north side of which, passing under an archway, we go through the delightful series of courts along the north side of the Palace—the Lord Chamberlain’s Court, the Master Carpenter’s Court, and others. Here are to be seen the narrow, irregular side courts of the old Tudor buildings, and remnants of the past in old lead water pipes, and in the heraldical beasts along the roof of the Great Hall which are most effectively seen from the Master Carpenter’s Court, through which we gain access to the cloisters and the ancient kitchens. The kitchens, which unfortunately are not thrown open to the public, are much as they were in olden days, and afford a curious and interesting glimpse of old-time domestic conditions, with their great fireplaces and their “hatches”, through which the dishes were passed to the servers whose duty it was to take them to the dining-hall.
Continuing past the kitchens the passage turns to the right and comes out at the north-west angle of the Fountain Court, before reaching which point, however, the entrance to the Chapel is passed on the left. On either side of the Chapel door are to be seen, carved, coloured, and gilt, the arms of Henry the Eighth and Seymour with the initials of the King and the Queen (of the moment) united by a true lover’s knot. The true lover’s knot was but a slip knot to the fickle king, the Queen Jane’s arms and cipher but replaced the earlier ones of Anne’s.
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THE POND GARDEN