500 years of gardens at Hampton Court Palace: part 1

In over 500 years, the gardens of Hampton Court Palace have been transformed from relatively modest enclosures and vast hunting grounds to lavish pleasure gardens with parterres, statues and fountains.

The gardens landscape we see today is the result of a unique partnership between kings, queens and the best gardeners of their day.

When Henry VIII moved into Hampton Court Palace in 1528, he commissioned one of the best gardens in the country.  

Henry's private, or privy, garden was laid out in heraldic fashion with 20 regular sections filled with flowers and bordered by low rails and poles, which were painted in Tudor colours. Onto these were fixed heraldic beasts holding up gilded metal weather vanes.

The Stuarts invested heavily in the gardens of Hampton Court Palace. Charles I created a new formal Wilderness garden in the French ‘bosquet’ style and celebrity designers such as Andre Mollet were commissioned to create magnificent new features.

One of these grand new features was Charles II's Long Water canal, which was created in preparation for the arrival of his bride, Catherine of Braganza.

The couple honeymooned at the palace and boats in the shape of swans sailed up the canal in a dramatic romantic gesture.

Such was Mary II's passion for plants and gardens that she created a collection of over 2,000 exotic plants and employed her own botanist, Dr Leonard Plukenet to look after them.

She also commissioned Dutchman Hendrick Floris to build the first greenhouses at Hampton Court Palace to protect her collection.

When viewed from above, these gardens looked like an elaborate carpet of plants. ​  

During these years of lavish spending, the French master of parterre design, Daniel Marot, was employed to design the Privy Garden and the original fountain garden with 13 fountains set in an intricate pattern of flower beds and coloured gravels.

Unfortunately, the fountains never worked very well due to a lack of water pressure.

After William III's untimely death in 1702, Queen Anne had the garden altered to make the three tree-lined avenues with a single central fountain that we see today. 

Conscious that she would have to reduce spending on the gardens, Anne appointed Henry Wise as Royal Gardener in 1702, believing he would know '...what is due and what expense will be necessary for the future of the gardens'.

After Bridgeman, the title of Master Gardener was given to George Lowe and John Greening before Lancelot 'Capability' Brown took over under George III in 1764. 

Brown was the most famous gardener of his day. He commanded the largest gardener's salary in the country, at £1,300 a year, and lived in Wilderness House in the grounds of Hampton Court from 1764 until his death in 1783. 

Brown was known for removing formal baroque gardens and adding sweeping naturalistic landscapes in their place.

However, with the King no longer in residence, and money being spent elsewhere, Brown left Hampton Court largely unchanged. This view from 1798 probably shows the garden as he left it.

As a result of Brown's tenancy, the yews in the Great Fountain Garden were left to grow and some are now over 300 years old. Over time, they have acquired a distinctive mushroom shape, but still get a yearly trim.  

Today, the Great Fountain Garden is a unique survivor from the great baroque garden era.​ Read on about 500 years of gardens at Hampton Court Palace: part 2.