Enfilade

Historic Royal Palaces press release (11 June 2014). . .

Made legendary by Henry VIII, undisputed king of the joust, Hampton Court Palace’s enormous tiltyard saw some of the most significant moments of his long and often scandalous reign. Horses thundered, colours fluttered in the breeze, and the court gathered in their finery to watch the displays of pride and chivalry. By 1702 however, with the passion for royal tournaments long faded, Queen Anne had ordered the site to be dug up and cropped with “severall varietys of Eatables, the most proper for Her Majesty’s Use.” The kitchen garden, covering six acres, fed the Queen and her court not only at Hampton Court, but at royal residences across the capital.

This summer, Historic Royal Palaces will be turning back the clock at Hampton Court to return the garden to its eighteenth century heyday, recreating the pathways and planting pattern laid down by the palace’s Georgian gardeners. Based on historic evidence and John Roque’s plan of 1736, it will be as true to the period as possible, right down to the now rare heritage varieties of fruit and vegetables which will be grown there.

This new addition to the palace’s world famous gardens will allow visitors to explore the untold history of food production at Hampton Court, with on-site displays helping to showcase some of the traditional techniques employed by royal gardeners to tend crops fit for a king. Herbs and vegetables familiar to the palace’s Georgian cooks will be reinstated, from Italian celery to borrage, skirret and swelling parsnips. Apricots, nectarines and even peaches will return to the garden in their original fan shapes, while the garden’s very own melonry, complete with hot beds of straw and manure, will also be recreated by the palace’s team of expert gardeners.

Importantly, the garden will be open to the public free of charge, and will provide a valuable educational resource for the local community, as well as the hundreds of visitors and school groups who enjoy the palace every day. As the garden matures, Historic Royal Palaces hopes to be able to run vegetable growing classes at the palace—reconnecting the Great Kitchens at Hampton Court with the locally sourced produce which once stocked them.

Vicki Cooke, Hampton Court Palace’s Kitchen Garden Keeper, said: “The reinstated Kitchen Garden at Hampton Court is the realisation of a massive amount of research, planning and labour by the team, and will give visitors a real taste of the work involved in supplying a royal kitchen. Our ambitious planting scheme showcases a whole range of less well known fruit, vegetables and herbs which would have gone into the lavish meals prepared for the monarchs who lived here, and will mean that each passing season brings new crops waiting to be discovered.”

The opening of the Royal Kitchen Garden is part of a wider celebration of the Georgians across Historic Royal Palaces in 2014, to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the Hanoverian Accession to the British throne.