Draft:Hampton Court, London

Hampton Court is a village in Greater London, located on the north bank of the River Thames, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England, and the historic county of Middlesex. The village adjoins its namesake Hampton Court Palace, and is centred around Hampton Court Green, a former common, now public open space.

The village is bounded on the north by Bushy Park, on the west by Hampton, on the south by the Thames, the walls of Hampton Court Palace and its Home Park, and to the east by Hampton Wick. The majority of the village's buildings and residences (which include many Buildings of Townscape Merit and former grace-and-favour residences of the Palace) front the present-day Hampton Court Road (A308) (formerly "The Windsor to Kingston Road") passing between the Palace and Bushy Park.

The history of the village is inexorably tied to the neighbouring palace, being created out of the industry and commerce required to construct and support the royal complex since the early 16th century. The setting of the village has not altered significantly since that time, other than alterations to road layouts, addition of modern street furniture, and iterative constructions of the neighbouring Hampton Court Bridge across the Thames. The historian Gerald Heath describes the village as "unique among British villages in having being been incapable of expanding into the countryside around it" and "never in its whole existence [having] any official status".

The origins of Hampton Court
The manor of Hampton was acquired in 1237 by the Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem (known as the Knights Hospitaller), who already owned a house and sheep pasture on the site of present-day Hampton Court Palace. The house, which by 1399 was known as Hampton Court, was regularly used by the royal court as alternative accommodation for Sheene Palace, the royal palace on the River Thames at Richmond.Cardinal Wolsey purchased the lease for the manor from the Order in 1514, and immediately set about development of the site, which was continued by Henry VIII after Wolsey's demise in 1530. The construction undertaken by Wolsey and Henry VIII required the recruitment of hundreds of architects, masons, glaziers, bricklayers, carpenters, plasterers, gardeners and labourers requiring lodging in Molesey, Hampton and Hampton Wick, and provisioning from markets at Kingston. A wharf on the Thames was constructed in 1515 to receive materials for the site, and workshops for artisans and smiths (including informal living accommodations), sprung up along the boundary of Bushy Park and outside the west front of the palace.This area came to be known as Hampton Court Green, and originally stretched on arable land from the west front of the palace along the river to opposite Tagg's Island. The green had been enclosed as pasture for the animals supporting the manor of Hampton either by the Knights Hospitaller or Wolsey, and as the number of houses around the green increased, became a stinted pasture for residents' horses and cattle, with a gate constructed at its western end to prevent animals wandering to Hampton.

The first houses for palace officers were built during this period, on Crown land outside the walls of the palace from the Great Gatehouse along the riverside to Tagg's Island. The Toy Inn, a temporary victualling house which had arisen outside the Gatehouse was repositioned out of earshot of Henry VIII's

Construction of the palace under Henry VIII ceased in 1547, but during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I, the palace regularly hosted the court and royal events, including the Hampton Court Conference of 1604. The court of Charles I regularly stayed at the palace, either following a summer Progress or overwintering, and during outbreaks of plague in London in 1625 and 1636. Water supply to the palace was overhauled during this period: with the conduit from Hampton relaid and the Longford River established.

During the English Civil War Charles I was imprisoned at Hampton Court Palace from August 1647 until his escape and flight to the Isle of Wight the following November. The palace was subsequently occupied by squatters, local villagers and tradesmen, and tracts of Bushy Park and the palace estate sold to private owners. The war otherwise bypassed Hampton Court, but a Royalist uprising in Kingston in the summer of 1648 required Colonel Henry Pretty to reinforce Hampton Court with calvary, and order the Hampton ferry affixed to the Middlesex bank at night. During the Protectorate, Oliver Cromwell and his family used the palace as a weekend country retreat, from 1654 until Cromwell's death in September 1658.

The expansion of Hampton Court Palace
The restoration of the monarchy after the Interregnum saw Charles II return to Hampton Court Palace in 1660, new construction work commissioned, and loyalists rewarded with offices and lodging. The houses and workshops along the Hampton Road forming the Offices of Works were improved, and lodgings assigned to the Master Carpenter, Master Mason, Master Locksmith, Paymaster, Comptroller of Works and Clerk of Works. The house of the new Surveyor-General of the King's Works, John Denham, was rebuilt in 1663 to include cellars, wharf, marbled parlour and formal garden. As in the time of Henry VIII's works, vendors dispensing victuals were permitted to set up booths and tents on the Green.

The commencement in 1689 by William III of works that would substantially rebuild and expand the eastern part of the Palace

The granting of copyhold leases, which had been sparingly awarded since the time of the Civil War and Protectorate, was expanded

'The village was beginning to take the shape it is today'. Heath 39

Something about Edward VI. Thurley 79-80

In 1850 an infants school was started in the Bakehouse for the children of palace employees. Heath 51

In 1853 streetlamps. Heath 52

Village had shops and inns catering to visitors to the palace. Heath 53

Tramway extended in 1903



Notable inhabitants

 * Michael Faraday (1791-1867) was granted the grace and favour residence now known as Faraday House (formerly on the site of the Master Mason's Lodge opposite Hampton Court Green) by Queen Victoria, where he lived out his final years.
 * Edward Jesse (1780-1868), the Surveyor of the Royal Parks and Palaces who superintended the restoration of Hampton Court Palace after its opening in 1838, including writing its first guidebooks and history, resided at the White House on Campbell Road from about 1840 to 1851.
 * Admiral Lord Keith (1746-1823) lived at Hampton Court House for a few years after 1799.
 * Ellen Terry (1847-1928) moved to Rose Cottage with her two children in 1880.
 * Francis Thomas-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Earl of Kerry lived at Hampton Court House 1816 to 1818.
 * Christopher Wren (1632-1723)