Holding court
We are launching 10 Special Stamps to celebrate the splendour of Hampton Court Palace.
Six stamps will depict exterior views of the Palace and its gardens, with a further four stamps featuring the Great Hall, the King’s Great Bedchamber, the Chapel Royal and the King’s Staircase.
The Palace is one of the best-known buildings in Britain and one of the grandest. Ranked among the top British historic attractions for almost two centuries, the Palace is inextricably linked to the Tudor king Henry VIII, one of England’s most famous monarchs.
Originally a large house, Cardinal Wolsey expanded the building into the Palace in the early years of Henry VIII’s reign. Henry later took Hampton Court for himself.
Sir Christopher Wren was commissioned to rebuild the Palace in the Baroque style by William III and Mary II.
The last British king to use Hampton Court regularly was George II. He also had lodgings made for his son, the Duke of Cumberland, in 1732, which would be the last-ever rooms made for a member of the royal family at Hampton Court Palace.
When George II died in 1760, his successors preferred to use other royal residences such as Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle. The Palace was split up into numerous apartments, which were then given, by the ‘grace and favour’ of the monarch, as rent-free residences to various retired court officials, admirals and diplomats.
In 1838, the young Queen Victoria, gave the Palace to the nation and ordered that it should be ‘thrown open to all her subjects without restriction’.
This made it, essentially, into the visitor attraction that it remains today.
One of the most popular attractions for visitors to Hampton Court is the world-famous maze. It is just one surviving part of the Palace’s extensive Baroque gardens.
Stamp strategy manager, Philip Parker, said: ‘Hampton Court Palace is one of the most famous and magnificent of all Royal Palaces. Our new stamps celebrate the grandeur of its architecture and the stunning gardens with its world famous maze’.
The stamps and souvenir products can be pre-ordered now from www.royalmail.com/hamptoncourtpalace and will be available from 7,000 Post Office branches nationwide from 31 July.
