Taking his fancy in 1514, the Cardinal demolished the manor house that had stood in the village of Hampton ("the farm in the bend of the river") for centuries to embark on his palatial scheme. The poor plebs had to shift out and create new Hamptons - Hampton-on-Thames upstream and Hampton Wick ("village") downstream.
With the two Hamptons cleaved apart by the royal favour of 1,099 acres of hunting land - now Bushy Park and Hampton Court Park - the administrative friction between town and village grew until the Wick declared itself independent in 1831. The town expanded northwards in the early 19th century to create the settlement of New Hampton, becoming an its own parish in 1863. Shortly after, the inhabitants forced a name change to Hampton Hill. There is no hill here, so the reason for the change must be lost in the social mores of Victorian England.
Hampton Town surrendered its river front from 1855 to a series of waterworks, a valuable source of employment which has now disappeared to be redeveloped. The final section of the Hamptons was filled in from the late Victorian era, as an expansion to the north-west in the direction of Hanworth occurred. Attempts at building various estates in this corner of Hampton have happened from the 1860s to the present day, with varying degrees of success.
Hampton Court now, as a placename, barely exists (apart from the train station). As a palace it is one of the most famous buildings in Britain, hurriedly given by Wolsey to Henry VIII in 1526 in an attempt to save his rapidly crumbling political career. The gamble failed, and Wolsey, a treasonable entity in Henry's eyes since he failed to clear the king's path to divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn, died on his way to a treason trial in 1530.
Henry, nothing if not selfish, did love the palace. It began a long love affair between monarchy and the building that lasted down to Victoria whose reign saw the ascent of Buckingham Palace. She opened Hampton Court Palace to the public and the Government took over administration in the same year, 1851. Bushy Park and Hampton Court Park were enclosed as hunting grounds by Henry VIII in 1538 but upon his death in 1547 the fences were pulled down and the public have had access ever since.
Steve Roberts.
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