Not a great deal is known about the means of cooking available at the Tower of London in its fortress days. At Hampton Court Palace, the greatest kitchen complex in history was constructed.  The Great Kitchen, extended from Cardinal Wolsey’s day, contained six fireplaces, and a second serving place allowed twice as many waiters as before to seize dishes of food to carry them up to the Hall.  Three new small courtyards sprang up, surrounded by all the necessary offices such as the Boiling House (for making stock) the Pastry House (for making pie cases), the confectioners’ house, the Wet Larder (for storing fish) and the Dry Larder (for grain).  One of the great attractions of Hampton Court Palace today is a visit to see the cooks in the Tudor kitchens, roasting meat on a spit or making Georgian hot chocolate. 

Meals for the members of the royal family, as opposed to their enormous households, would be cooked in the smaller Privy Kitchens dispersed around the palace, and in William III’s reign his chocolate-maker Mr Nice had a small kitchen off the Fountain Court cloister placed conveniently below the king’s apartments.  From the reign of Charles II, increasing cost and royal poverty meant that the generous practice of providing the whole household with meals twice a day was discontinued, and communal dining became a thing of the past.