Hello and welcome back to the Historic Royal Palaces podcast.

I'm Alexandra Stevenson and I'm curator of archaeology and historic buildings here at the palaces.

The private Tudor gardens of Hampton Court were a haven for escape, entertainment and enjoyment to the Tudor and the later Stuart Monarchs who lived here,

and perhaps no more so than for Elizabeth I during her long reign.

Despite the fact they are now lost to us, what we do know about these gardens can reveal

glimpses into the private world of the monarchs and the people who worked for them.

So in today's episode, I'm going to take you into what we now call the Privy

Gardens at Hampton Court, where we're going to explore Elizabeth the first sanctuary of peace

and privacy and even discover more about her lost still gardens, a place where herbs were grown

and sweet-smelling ointments, oils and waters were distilled for her use. A lot of this is new research that we're bringing straight to you on the podcast.

So join me as we explore the Lost Tudor Gardens.

I'm standing in Queen Mary's Bower, which is on the west side of the Privy Garden.

It's lovely and cool in here. You can hear the leaves rustling and there's a distant sound of a lawn mower not

quite sure what they're mowing because I can't actually see any grass but

something's going on yeah it's quite a cool morning the rain has stopped it's

quite nice today.

We're in the privy garden because I want to talk about Henry the Eighth's gardens and Elizabeth I first gardens as well.

But it's quite difficult to imagine what they might look like because

there's not really much to see anymore apart from a few sort of walls

dotted around here and there maybe a little doorway hidden in a basement somewhere but yeah so

we're going to explore those today so here in the baroque gardens, we're at the south of Hampton Court

Palace. So it is the site of Henry the 8th, Temside Gardens. And all the bells and whistles were

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