Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Close by stands the
Lower Orangery
, designed by Wren and used as a dimly lit
gallery for
The Triumphs of Caesar
, a series of heroic canvases by
Andrea Mantegna
,
bought by Charles I in 1629 and kept here ever since. Painted around 1486 for the
Ducal Palace in Mantua, Mantegna's home town, these nine richly coloured paintings,
depicting the general's victory parade, are among his best works, characterized by his
obsessive interest in archeological and historical accuracy. Beyond the South Gardens,
beside the river, is William III's dinky little red-brick
Banqueting House
, built for
intimate riverside soirees, with castellations and mouldings by Gibbons and exuberant
paintings by Verrio.
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The Maze
To the north of the palace, Henry VIII laid out a
Tiltyard
with five towers for watching
jousting tournaments, one of which survives near the garden restaurant. William III
transformed the tiltyard into a
Wilderness
- an informal park of evergreens - which
now contains the most famous feature of the palace gardens, the deceptively tricky
trapezoidal
Maze
, laid out in 1714. Mazes, or labyrinths as they were called at the time,
were used by pilgrims, who used to crawl along on hands and knees reciting prayers, as
penance for not making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. They were all the rage among
the eighteenth-century nobility, who used them primarily for amusement, secret
conversations and flirtation. The maze was originally planted with hornbeam, but, with
the onset of the tourist boom in the 1960s, the hornbeam had to be replaced with yew.
Bushy Park
Beyond the Lion Gates, to the north of the Maze, across Hampton Court Road, lies
Bushy Park
, the palace's semi-wild enclosure of over a thousand acres, which sustains
copious herds of fallow and red deer. Wren's mile-long royal road, Chestnut Avenue,
cuts through the park, and is at its best in May when the trees are in blossom. The
main architectural feature of the park is the
Diana Fountain
, situated a third of the way
along the avenue to help break the monotony. The statue - which, in fact, depicts
Arethusa - was commissioned by Charles II from Francesco Fanelli and originally
graced the Privy Garden; stranded in the centre of this vast pond, she looks
ill-proportioned and a bit forlorn.
Off to the west, a little further up the avenue, you'll come upon the
Waterhouse
Woodland Gardens
, created in 1949, and at their most colourful each spring when the
rhododendrons, azaleas and camellias are in bloom. The crowds are fairly thin even
here, compared with the crush around the palace, but if you really want to seek out
some of the park's abundant wildlife head for its wilder western section, where few
visitors venture.
