A Space I Love S3 – The Oak Room at Hampton Court Palace
Historic Royal Palaces Podcast
Historic Royal Palaces
4.6 • 635 Ratings
🗓️ 12 September 2024
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this four part mini-series, we’re back exploring a selection of treasured spaces in our palaces with the people who know them best, our curators.
Each space has been personally chosen by our resident experts, revealing how immersing ourselves in a place can connect us to the past, and make us reflect on the present.
In this first episode we’ll follow Assistant Curator Minette Butler into a deceptively domestic space at Hampton Court Palace. The Oak Room tells the story of the palace after the Royals left, and serves as a charming symbol of the small Grace and Favour community who inherited it.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello listeners. Welcome back to this mini-series on the Historic Royal Palaces podcast. |
| 0:06.0 | In this four-part series, our curator's team are going to be venturing into some of our most loved spaces in the palaces. |
| 0:13.0 | We have chosen these spaces specially in the hope that we can transport you to some of our favourite moments in history. |
| 0:20.0 | We want this series to be calm and reflective |
| 0:22.6 | and perhaps you'll even find it a little bit moving. |
| 0:25.6 | So please get ready to escape to the past with us. I am standing in Clot Court at Hampton Court Palace on a beautiful summer's morning. |
| 0:50.3 | It's always so strange to stand in the palace this time of day. |
| 0:53.6 | It's so quiet this early. |
| 0:55.0 | Normally you have this hustle and bustle, visitors going back and forth. |
| 0:59.0 | It's a bit of a thoroughfare, really. |
| 1:02.0 | But the thing I love about standing in Clock Court in particular |
| 1:05.0 | is you can just see so much of Hampton Court's history in the one spot |
| 1:10.0 | just to give you a little taste. To the north, |
| 1:12.8 | I can see Henry the 8's Tudor Great Hall. But then to the east, we have George the Seconds Gateway, |
| 1:18.9 | which was part of William Kent's renovations in the early 18th century. And right now, I am standing |
| 1:24.9 | under Sir Christopher Wren's magnificent colonnade. |
| 1:28.3 | We have these beautiful long rows of columns made from Portland Stone. |
| 1:32.3 | And this was built as part of the massive renovations to the palace under King William III and Queen Mary the 2nd |
| 1:39.3 | as this gorgeous grand entrance to the King's State Apartments in the Baroque Palace. |
| 1:44.8 | And what I love is just the way all these histories are layered on top of each other or sitting |
| 1:49.1 | side by side. |
| 1:50.8 | And what's great about this place is it's not just the architecture, but just all the different |
... |
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