Ham House & Garden (London

Close to Richmond Park is this place called Ham House. Very similar to Eltham Palace this is also a palatial villa of the Dukes and Duchesses of the era bygone!

This was built in 1610 by William Murray and his daughter Elizabeth, the Duchess of Lauderdale. Willaim Murray was the classmate of King Charles I and friend since childhood. So, King Charles gave this property as a gift! Presently this property is under National Trust and again I don't understand how come this is under it and not English Heritage! Confused!!!

Even before entering, in the huge space of greenery with a Grecian looking sculpture on the centre. Along the compound wall are bust sculptures of various people. The staircase that lead to the first floor looks spectacular. Esp the engraving on either sides was made in 1638 and each and every panel look different feat armour, weapons, animals etc. There are fabulous masterpieces of paintings along the stairs on the wall.

The 2nd floor and 3rd floor are where Mrs.Henderson's room and Servants' room, which were not accessible. In the 1st floor is the Long Gallery filled with several portrait paintings of various people. At the end of this gallery are 2 sections to the left and right.

On the right is the huuuuge library. William Murray and Elizabeth originally had thousands of books. Later on many of the books were sold to maintain the palace. However later, the remainder of the 1000 books have been preserved in his library incl his study table, his chair and ladder. But what attracted me the most were the 2 globes and 2 maps of the era bygone. One of the globes is too damaged and is kept closed in its own leather case. In the map, Australia alone wasn't mapped properly by connected PNG & NZ!

Another factor that I particularly noticed was ofcouse India Map. All the trade areas were marked which are not essentially important locales in today's world! Surat (mapped as Sourat) where textile trade happened, Golconda (trade centre close to Kohinoor where the Queen's Crown diamond comes from), Malabar, Cochin (where spice trade happened) Coromandal Coast incl Madras, Pondicherry, Gingi (where Calico trade happened) etc were marked. There is no mention of Mumbai or Delhi which are important places today!!!

On the left are 3 chambers of the Queen. The 1st room is filled with incredible folding room separators from China and tapestries from Belgium. The 2nd room was originally a bedroom however was never used by her so was covered as a sitting room. The 3rd room was the smallest and the throne/chair here was actually a reclining one! On reclining and seeing above, she could see the paintings atop on the ceiling. Some of the fabrics definitely made me think they're from Banaras!!!

In the ground floor there's a chapel and below the staircase were the toilet and bathroom. To much of my amusement, the toilet itself was painted with French Toile styled paintings!!! The Duke & Duchesses apartments are also in this floor incl the bed chamber.

One of the room is called the portrait room where the miniature paintings of the entire family. In that era this was how they introduced their family tree to visitors & friends!!! This room also has some impeccable mother of pearl cabinets made in China!!!

There is one particular chair that was considered only as a piece of furniture and only much later did they figure out that the back of this furniture was painted. Perhaps the whole furniture was painted and over time has wiped off!

The wall of these rooms were filled with tapestries and the floors were filled with geometrical designs in wood and the ceilings with paintings.

Just outside, in an enoromous space of land are greenery. Behind the palace are 6 huge patches of grass. In that era, maintaining grass was an expensive affair and so much grass is a way of showing off the wealth! The Cherry Garden on the side is perhaps the most beautiful of them all!

Over time the entire place was filled with wilderness before National Trust took this over. It was only with the drawings, plans and documents of the plantation did they know how was it with all its former glory and were able to retrieve it back to it.

Behind this was the wilderness or picnic area which was bordered with trees and has 16 sections of greenery. Within this place seating arrangement could be made. Beside this was the garden kitchen which existed since the inception. Infact this place has its own cow shed from where its diary came, beer cellar in the basement, ice house in the side etc! Elizabeth had used the greenery of this garden not only for food but also to make her own cosmetics & skincare products!!

Somehow I definitely felt this was more to do with the palatial building than the greenery. Just beside runs the Thames on which the school kids were practicing their competitive rowing! The river was filled to the brim that water overflowed on the road!!!

To Get There:

Nearest metro station: Richmond

Nearest buss stop: Ham Street

Entry Ticket: £10.40 (can be bought at the gate)

Details & entry timings can be found on their website.

P.S: I was invited by National Trust to experience their property at Ham House for review purpose, however the opinions are my own and this post does not to advertise the product/service.

Dedicated to Venkat

Ham House & Garden (London - England)

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