THE KITCHENS AT HAMPTON COURT PALACE
With 200 cooks, grooms and pages working to produce over 800 meals a day for the hungry household of Henry VIII – the kitchens at Hampton Court were the largest in Tudor England.
From boiling cauldrons to roasting spits, 1.3 million logs burned in the hellish fires every year.
The Tudor kitchens were divided into a number of departments, each controlled by a Sergeant and a team of yeoman and grooms.
The Kitchen department where meat was roasted was under the control of three Master Cooks.
One for the King, the Queen and the rest of the Court.
These staff toiled under a complex set of rules determining which of the 1,200-odd members of Henry’s court qualified for meals, as part of their pay.
Working in the kitchens could be a sweaty and dirty job.
Henry VIII had to order the ‘scullions’ to stop going about ‘naked, or in garments that they lie in at night’
Ordering, preparing and cooking food on this scale, required an efficient system.
Raw food arrived at one end, and finished dishes ready to be served at the other.
Fresh water for drinking and cooking, was piped into the palace from springs three miles away.
Water was safe to drink at the palace.
The quantities of meat procured for the Court in one year during Elizabeth I’s reign included:
Sheep – 8,200
Deer – 2,330
Pigs – 1,870
Oxen – 1,240
Calves – 760
Wild boar – 53
All this food was washed down at court with gallons of wine and beer!
Entertaining the court in lavish style reflected the magnificence of the monarch, and Henry kept his cellars well stocked.
Barrels of wine were sent from Europe and kept in cellars next to the kitchens, while beer was stored close to the Great Hall.
Henry VIII expanded and added to the kitchens at Hampton Court Palace, but they weren’t for him.
The King had his own private kitchen below his rooms….
Henry VIII’s kitchens continued to be used for a further two hundred years, feeding the tables of Tudor, Stuart and Georgian monarchs – and their many courtiers.
