Today we visited Hampton Court with Nesba, Madeley, and Madeley's cousins Billy and Louie. Hampton Court was "given" to King Henry VIII by Cardinal Wolsey, who had no choice because the King insisted that no one should have a more grand home than he. It is a huge compound with gorgeous gardens and something like 500 rooms - none used as a residence today of course! But 100 rooms contain some of the Queen's art, and 300 of the rooms are used as a habitate for a particular kind of spider that is not found anywhere else in the world. Apparently these spiders eat dust mites, so dusting of these rooms is not necessary. I'm not sure if the guard was pulling my leg or not! But he sounded sincere! He also told us of the ghosts in the palace...
The top photo was one of our favorite sights of course - the toilet! This is the actual toilet seat (red velvet) used by one of the kings in the 18th century (one of the Williams I think). Did you know that there was an actual servent of the King (and Queen I would guess) whose job it was to wipe the royal bottom?? Yep! And today there is someone who warms up the royal toilet seat for the Queen!!! And when the Queen visits anywhere, she must have her own private bathroom that no one else can use - so many places end up adding on another bathroom just for her. Those royals!
We enjoyed the maze (several times - Sean loved it!) in the gardens, and also saw the oldest living vine in the world...very exciting stuff! The vine was planted in 1768 and is huge. I think it is a grape vine. They don't plant anything else near it for fear of that plant taking moisture away from the vine. Because it is term break for children, they had lots of children's activities. We even "saw" King Henry VIII and Queen Katherine Parr (one of the Queen's he didn't behead) on their wedding day!
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