Hampton Court Palace’s ornately decorated Chapel Royal has closed to worshipers for the first time in two decades to allow a rare chance for conservation work to be carried out.
First built in 1514 for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey on the site of a chapel used by the Knights Hospitaller of St. John of Jerusalem, the Chapel Royal was later enlarged and embellished for Henry VIII and then for William II & Mary II, and later for Queen Anne in 1710.
The Baroque decorative scheme is a veritable who’s who of the period with wall paintings by Thomas Highmore and Sir James Thornhill, the appointed Royal Painters of the time, and wooden reredos (altarpiece) carvings designed by distinguished English architects Nicholas Hawksmoor and William Dickinson and brought to life by Britain’s most celebrated woodcarver, Grinling Gibbons.
Over the next few weeks, a team of conservators will be able to get close to Queen Anne’s 18th-century baroque redecoration—masterminded by Sir Christopher Wren — for the first time in over 20 years by ascending a 10-metre-high bespoke scaffold.
It has simply not been possible to do this work until now due to the difficulties of closing the chapel to worshipers and the Choral Foundation, combined with the immense practical and financial challenges of erecting full-height scaffolding in a site of such historical significance with complex, sensitive interiors.
The agreement to close the chapel coincided with donations from the Syder Foundation and the Leche Trust, in addition to the charity’s own funds to allow for the conservation work to be carried out.
Historic Royal Palaces have confirmed to me that there won’t be any public access to the scaffold to get to the ceiling as the cramped space and type of work being carried out make it unsuitable for the public. However, visitors to Hampton Court Palace will be able to stand in the Royal Pew, which overlooks the main part of the chapel and watch the conservators at work from there.
Treatment Conservation Manager at Historic Royal Palaces, Mika Takami, said: “We are absolutely thrilled to have this rare, long-awaited opportunity for specialist conservators to get up close to these extraordinary decorative and architectural works by the finest artists and craftsmen of the day. This is a once in a generation chance to assess their condition, perform any necessary stabilisation and meticulously document details for future, in-depth studies of these heritage assets.”
The chapel is due to reopen at the end of September 2024.
This article was published on ianVisits
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