Visit Hampton Court Palace’s Kitchen Garden For Free

[cinrit]

When 'food' is mentioned in the same sentence as 'Hampton Court' what generally springs to mind are Henry VIII's massive Tudor kitchens, groaning with hogs heads, venison and enough pies to satisfy an army. An army that, when not actually fighting potential invaders, spent much of its time playing at it, jousting in the tilt-yards round the back. But if Henry was happy to live on a diet of red meat and machismo, by the time the later Stuarts took over, they were ready for some veg.

Queen Anne was unimpressed with tilting. It hadn't been fashionable for years. The foreign invaders she was most interested in were the exotic new edibles arriving with every merchant ship.

King Hal's jousting fields were ripped up and turned into six one-acre, up-to-the-minute kitchen gardens. They were given plenty of walls to provide warmth and shelter for tender new delicacies such as apricots and peaches, and plenty of room for Her Majesty's every other veg-related whim. Expensive luxuries like potatoes, tomatoes and runner beans. Tender peas, fresh from the pod, not the dried up pebbles that peasants ate. Asparagus, squashes, fancy salad. A lot of fancy salad.

The gardens produced horticultural baubles, edible novelties and actual food between 1702 and 1840, when the palace ceased to be a Royal residence. They were relegated to market nurseries, then ornamental grassland before ending up as a putting green.

More: Visit Hampton Court Palace?s Kitchen Garden For Free | Londonist

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