Day 5 – Hampton Court Palace – by Michael

After four hard days of work at Basing house, the team took a well earned break and headed down to Hampton Court Palace for a day trip. After a short lie-in we headed up north to the famous palace.

Basing House is known to have been built in a similar style to Hampton Court so the excursion helped us to identify the various parts of Basing House which had been described to us, as well as give us a sense of how grand Basing House once was. Callum says that his favourite part of the trip was the “Secrets of the Royal Bedchamber” exhibit which featured a large room filled with mattresses and had a short film being projected onto the roof. Alina’s favourite part on the other hand, was the famous Hampton Court Maze.

Overall the day out proved very useful both in helping the team bond as well as educating us all about the history of Basing House and helping us to gauge a scale of how it might have once looked, particularly the large gatehouse with the terracotta heads of Roman emperors on the walls.