Henry VIII's Great Hall
The room is spanned by a large and sumptuously decorated hammer-beam roof and its walls are hung with Henry VIII’s most splendid tapestries, The Story of Abraham.
William Shakespeare’s company – the ‘King’s Men’ – performed for King James I over Christmas and New Year in 1603-4.
In the 21st Century the Prime Minister at the time, Tony Blair, chaired an informal meeting of the Heads of State and Government of the European Union in the Great Hall on the 27 October 2005, following in a noble tradition of royal and political entertainment.
Historic tourists to the Great Hall
‘Going up into the left wing of the palace one comes to an enormous hall with an arched roof made from some Irish wood which, so they say, has the natural property of keeping free of cobwebs.’ Baron Waldstein, tourist (1600)
‘Hampton Court is as noble and uniform a pile, and as capacious as any Gothic architecture can have made it …The great hall is a most magnificent room…’ John Evelyn, diarist (1662)
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