Great Hall

 

England's last and greatest medieval hall

Where to find it: Henry VIII’s State Apartments, Hampton Court Palace

See it for yourself: visit the palace

Why see it?

It’s England’s last and greatest medieval hall

  • The room is spanned by a large and sumptuously decorated hammer-beam roof and its walls are hung with Henry VIII’s most splendid tapestries, The Story of Abraham.

It’s one of Britain’s oldest theatres

  • William Shakespeare’s company – the ‘King’s Men’ – performed for King James I over Christmas and New Year in 1603-4.

 

The Great Hall in the 21st century

Tony Blair chaired an informal meeting of the Heads of State and Government of the European Union in the Great Hall on the 27 October 2005, following in a noble tradition of royal and political entertainment.

They said it...

‘Going up into the left wing of the palace one comes to an enormous hall with an arched roof made from some Irish wood which, so they say, has the natural property of keeping free of cobwebs.’

            -Baron Waldstein, traveller (1600)

‘Hampton Court is as noble and uniform a pile, and as capacious as any Gothic architecture can have made it …The great hall is a most magnificent room…’

            -John Evelyn, diarist (1662)

 

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