Yesterday evening’s Country File programme included a section on the Hampton Court flower show. An aerial view showed the Tudor period house beside a meander of the River Thames. Built, originally, to the instructions of Cardinal Wolsey early in the reign of the second Tudor monarch Henry VIII Hampton Court was a grand example of the developing era of building residences without particular reference to defence from potential attack. Indeed the King took over ownership after the fall from grace of Cardinal Wolsey in the 1530s, it becoming one of his portfolio of 20+ palaces, mostly dotted alongside the River Thames. Of course, the River provided both advantages and potential disadvantages. The River Thames, like most other English rivers of the time, was utilised as a highway, royal barges and richly liveried bargemen being the main vehicle and means of propulsion for the use of the King. The main disadvantage was the threat of flooding when the water tables were high in the Cotswold and Chiltern escarpments (not sure if the Thames was tidal as far inland as Hampton Court but certainly the flow-tide would have had less effect there than further east – this long before the Thames Barrier was built). In what was the lower course of the River Thames the River’s banks would have been raised naturally as levees by flood deposition before the intervention of Man. Whether Wolsey or King Henry had the River’s banks further raised artificially to improve flood-defence is something I need to research.
The day before I had taken the train from Paragon station, Hull to York (the first time I had ever taken the train to York!), the line passing just south of the ruined south façade of Wressle Castle, near Howden, East Riding of Yorkshire (see picture above) before crossing the bridge over the lower course of the River Derwent. So, like Hampton Court, Wressle Castle was built near a river bank, in effect on a flood plain.
(To be continued).