Digging to find the truth
Archaeologists at the palace
Forget the Haunted Hall, the real mystery at Hampton Court palace is one that has haunted architects and historians for almost five centuries.
The History
Hampton Court Palace, which rivalled the royal palaces of the day with its splendour, was originally built as a residence for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, but in 1528, Wolsey was forced to surrender the palace to Henry VIII. Soon after taking control of the palace, Henry began a decade long remodelling project that almost completely obscured the design of the original palace.
The Mystery
The puzzle of the palace's original design has troubled historians and architects like Jonathan Foyle for many years. What did the original palace look like? Nobody knew. There were no design plans, no drawings, nothing. All that they had were written descriptions of the magnificence of the palace.
Foyle realized one day that several walls of the original palace seemed to form part of a complex geometric pattern. In order to test his theory of the palace's original design, he began a series of small archaeological digs inside the palace. In his digging Foyle uncovered remnants of the original Great Hall, the original kitchen floor, and a pipe which was used to supply water to the kitchen; all were apparently part of the original design, much to the surprise of some historians. Eventually, Foyle found that his hypothesis about the design had been correct, but more than that, he found that there is still much that is yet to be discovered about the mysterious palace.
Submitted by: A. Wallen, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 28 April 2003
