History | Author, Jane Lark's stories

I’ve been meaning to post this little story for over a year and not found time, but now I have time! So here you are. Before you read on, though, it might be worth stepping back to read my post about Kew Palace that was a house initially rented and then bought from a silk merchant and turned into a palace.

This story flows from that of Kew Palace because when I stayed in Kew last year to explore both the palace and gardens – which I have now fallen in love with and already visited once more since – on the way home I decided to visit another period property that was open to the public, Ham House. Only to discover that Ham House had been owned by the Royal family until 1600s, and in an odd opposing point was given to courtiers by Charles I. It would have made a much smarter home for The Royal House of Hanover had they returned to this house rather than moving in basically next door.

Ham House and Kew Palace are literally ten minutes apart by car, so isn’t it odd that one Royal, Charles I, rented out his property on this area of the bank of the Thames and then the Hanovers, George II, came along and rented the estate almost next door.

One of the things I found so charming about Kew was that it was such a humble place for a palace, and they had even toned decoration down from the former 17th century decoration. As I said in the Kew post, in areas not in the family spaces open to the public, there’s a wall painting that indicates a smarter but still not that grand decoration before it became a palace.

And then I walked up to through the gates of Ham House… This is what I had expected to see inside Kew Palace.

Ham House is palatial.

William Murray who was given Ham House was a very close friend of Charles I from childhood onwards. It was in 1626 when Charles I was aged 25, that he gave his friend William Ham House and the surrounding lands. The property had only been built in 1610. It sits just along the river Thames from Hampton Court as well as Kew, and as travelling by boat was often the quickest option at the time it would have made it easy for the King to reach his friend from Hampton Court or from the old Palace at Whitehall (that no longer exists) in London.

William and his wife Catherine, then spent a lot of money decorating the house, and much of the decoration they commissioned and the items they bought 400 years ago are still adorning Ham House today.

Even as I waited in the porch for the house to open for the day, I noticed the art work on the plaster in the porches. Murals that sought to create views within the porches. The fashions were to paint every space possible until the 1700s – inside and outside.

Then I walked into the hall, and saw the ceiling and wall paintings that were as good as any painting you would hang on a wall. This was a space you could imagine a royal family living in.

Ham House is a fantastic time capsule of pre English Civil War times. With the sort of decoration I expected to find inside Kew Palace, with plenty of gilding. It also made me smile when I saw the staircase was a wooden version of the one that had been painted onto the wall to save money in the behind the scenes spaces in Kew Palace.

The Ham House staircase

The remnant of the wall aspect of the staircase in kew Palace before it became a palace

This makes me wonder if the silk merchant who owned Kew Palace before the Royal Family, had this painted decoration done to match his grander neighbours’ actual staircase.

What a fantastic gem of a house, though, and such a surprise settled in between Kew and Hampton Court. My mind was spinning with imaging how life flowed along that little stretch of the river Thames in the 15th-19th Centuries. So many stories in there… One day I’l write at least one story about this fascinating period. I did have one particularly good idea but I will keep that to myself. 😉

I have used follies in my Regency Romances because I love the idea of building something just for fun, just for adult entertainment, be that entertainment innocent or sinful. The Georgian eras were renowned for pleasure seeking, from the pleasure gardens that people paid to attend, like Vauxhall, to the tunnels and rooms dug beneath the Chiltern Hills created for the Hellfire Club. One of the most popular follies for innocent entertainment at the time, was to build a cottage in the garden. Just a single room that could be used for more simple pleasures like stopping for a cup of tea during an afternoon stroll.

I have used the folly in the images below, which is in the grounds of Stourhead, as an example to make up my own cottage folly for scenes in a book. I have always thought it quite impressive that so much detail was built into something people only occasionally used. But that was the whole point of a folly, it was a stupid waste of money, but it was also, therefore, an expression of how wealthy you were because you had money you could afford to waste on such a luxury.

So when I saw the cottage built for Queen Charlotte in the grounds of the palace at Kew, London… Below. Well, what a folly, or you could say what a silly waste of money. Or you could say what an impressive investment in luxury. Royal luxury.

This cottage folly serves exactly the same purpose as the much smaller version at Stourhead, and I love that they are built in a similar style, displaying the same fashion, with a chimney/s and thatched roof. Just like the cottage at Stourhead, the cottage in the grounds of Kew Gardens, is a place to stop while they took some exercise in the grounds, they may have ridden or walked to reach it, and the servants would be there already with a luncheon prepared. It is not a place where anyone can live, or stay, it is literally for a short period of pleasure.

I have to say, this is not the tallest folly I have ever seen, but I think it well maybe the largest.