2010 line up
Jackson Browne
8/6/2010 – Hamp Court Palace Festival Hampton Court Tickets – London, United Kingdom

Van Morrison
10/6/2010 – Hampton Court Palace Hampton Court Tickets – London, United Kingdom

Jools Holland
11/6/2010 – Hampton Court Palace Hampton Court Tickets – London, United Kingdom

Nicola Benedetti
12/6/2010 – Hampton Court Palace Hampton Court Tickets – London, United Kingdom

Simply Red
15/6/2010 – Hampton Court Palace Hampton Court Tickets – London, United Kingdom

Simply Red
16/6/2010 – Hampton Court Hampton Court Tickets – London, United Kingdom

Michael Bolton
17/6/2010 – Hampton Court Hampton Court Tickets – London, United Kingdom

Katherine Jenkins
18/6/2010 – Hampton Court Hampton Court Tickets – London, United Kingdom

Michael Ball
19/6/2010 – Hampton Court Hampton Court Tickets – London, United Kingdom

All Hampton Court Tickets are available on Gig Sport

We are delighted that South West trains have added two special Festival services – the last trains will leave Hampton Court at 23:24, 23:45 and 00:13 after each performance.

Trains from Waterloo leave at 06 minutes and 36 minutes past the hour.

Late night and weekend train services are often subject to diversions for local engineering work. Please check www.nationalrail.co.uk before you travel.

By Car: Hampton Court Palace is situated to the South West of Central London and is close to Kingston Upon Thames. It is 20 minutes from junctions 15, 12 and 10 of the M25.

Complimentary parking facilities a few minutes walk from the Palace are available to Festival patrons. Festival car parking will be extensively signposted on all major approach roads. Car Parks will be open from 5pm onwards on performance days and until one hour after the end of the performance.

By Bus: Local bus services R68, 411, 111 & 216 also serve Hampton Court Palace.

By Boat: Hampton Court Palace Festival and Turk Launches are pleased to offer a boat service from Turks Pier, Kingston-Upon-Thames (short walk from Kingston station) to Hampton Court Palace (journey time 30mins). Boats depart at 18.00 & 18.45 on each night of the Festival (18.00 only on classical performances that start at 19:15/19.30). Return service at 23.00 on each night of the Festival.

The dates are as under:-

Hampton Court Tickets

Hamp Court Palace Festival Tickets – Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Hampton Court Palace Tickets – Thursday, June 10, 2010

Hampton Court Palace Tickets – Friday, June 11, 2010

Hampton Court Palace Tickets – Saturday, June 12, 2010

Hampton Court Palace Tickets – Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Hampton Court Tickets – Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Hampton Court Tickets – Thursday, June 17, 2010

Hampton Court Tickets – Friday, June 18, 2010

Hampton Court Tickets – Saturday, June 19, 2010

All Hampton Court Tickets are available on Gig Sport

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Ah, here comes the summer – packed tube-trains with the smell of armpit-onion emanating throughout, tattooed bare-chested strut-wits parading their wares for the local laydeez (and vice-versa), last year’s ice-cream being sold at next year’s prices, Christmas puddings on sale, yeah I love the summer in London.

Seriously though, there is very little better than listening to some cracking music and drinking something that resembles what it looks like instead of which river its been pumped out of. No matter where you are in this great (grate) capital of ours, make an effort to attend the 2010 Greenwich Beer and Jazz Festival – it really is ‘mmm nice!’ (to quote the Fast Show character).

Music-wise this year sees a real treat for fans of 90s acid-jazz and the Talkin’ Loud scene, as well as a few other surprises. The festival kicks off on Thursday 27th May and ends on Sunday 30th with 3 main music performances per day, a lunch, afternoon and evening session to be precise.

Hampton Court is really buzzing this year – and not just with the chatter of 170,000 visitors pouring through the gates. This is the year of the honeybee: not only is there a show garden dedicated to beekeeping, there’s also a host of bee-related activities for parents and kids going on in the Children’s Zone, courtesy of the British Beekeepers’ Association (BBKA). And if that wasn’t enough our blogger Nicola Hills has created a stunning ‘Beekeepers Garden’ that has plenty of inspirational ideas for all of us.

Thousands of people are taking up the ancient art of apiculture – that’s beekeeping to you and me – every year. The BBKA reports membership numbers have shot up by about 40% over the last two years, and beekeeping courses are heavily oversubscribed. Chris Deaves, education officer for the BBKA, says it’s concern for honeybee populations – currently dropping alarmingly low from a combination of bad weather and disease – which is driving the beekeeping boom.

“People are more aware of the environment,” he says. “They’re all young professionals and they want to do something.”

Budding apiarists may turn up out of concern for the bees, but they stay because it’s an absorbing hobby that’s productive and a lot of fun. Roy Swanwick, a 48-year-old father of two, took up beekeeping this year, and is currently planning to add another two hives to his collection.

“It’s been an incredible year to start,” he says. In the six weeks since he began he’s gone from one small ‘nucleus’ colony to four fully-stocked hives on his allotment on the outskirts of Liverpool city centre.

“It relaxes me,” explains Roy. “That might seem bizarre, what with 40,000 stinging things around you, but it enables me to concentrate on something else, away from the humdrum stuff in everyday life.”

He’s now teaching his eldest son the rudiments of beekeeping, and says so far the eight-year-old thinks it’s “fantastic” – though mind you, he adds, he hasn’t been stung yet. Roy’s dad, too, is having a go, and his fellow allotmenteers often borrow a beekeeping suit and come to give a hand. Many have said how much more productive their beans, courgettes and peas are since Roy and his bees arrived.

Roy’s city-centre location is a positive advantage: as well as the allotments, his bees are to be found busily working their way through the nectar-rich meadow at the National Wildflower Centre in Court Hey Park next door. They even enjoy the nearby M62 motorway – “the embankment is covered in lupins and clover,” explains Roy. In fact you don’t even need a garden to take up beekeeping, as bees just go and borrow other people’s. Some even think city honey is better than that made in the country, as there’s a wider variety of flowers in small urban gardens.

Roy began his beekeeping career with a training course arranged through his local beekeepers’ association, learning about a bee’s lifecycle, swarming, disease and of course honey production – essential knowledge for any would-be beekeeper, says Chris.

“As soon as you have bees they’re automatically interacting with all the bees in your area, so inevitably you have a responsibility to other beekeepers. If people don’t know about how to keep them properly they become a menace to other beekeepers and then eventually a menace to themselves.”

Once you’re up and running, Chris estimates you’ll need to put aside an hour or so once a week in summer to care for your bees – less in winter when the bees are dormant. For that, and perhaps an evening’s sticky work on the production line, you can expect about 40-60 jars of honey from each hive every year – more if it’s a particularly good summer. And that’s not all.

“There’s honey, but there’s also beeswax, and propilis – it’s a sap-like material that’s rich in antibiotics and some people swear by it,” says Roy. “There’s not a lot you can’t use out of a hive. And anything that doubles your crops on the allotment can’t be a bad thing either, can it?”

In 2009, independent charity Historic Royal Palaces celebrated the 500th anniversary of King Henry VIII’s accession to the throne with Henry VIII: heads and hearts at Hampton Court Palace – the most ambitious programme of exhibitions, events, displays and preparatory conservation work ever staged at the King’s former royal residence.

Henry VIII: heads and hearts has involved 38 separate and original projects, all combining to create a holistic visitor experience of Henry VIII’s Tudor palace in the landmark anniversary year and beyond. Highlights included:

• The complete re-presentation of Henry VIII’s State Apartments, featuring magnificent new furnishings, important historic exhibits, and new interpretation bringing the story of the King and his court vividly to life
• The creation of a Tudor garden, Chapel Court, based on new and extensive  historical research into Henry VIII’s 16th century privy gardens
• The archaeology and restoration of Base Court, the palace’s great inner courtyard, where King Henry’s guests were ceremoniously received
• The opening of the Council Chamber to the public for the first time, richly re-dressed and featuring an innovative interactive exhibition encouraging visitors to join the King’s privy council in debating the issues of the day
• Henry VIII’s Tapestries Revealed – a groundbreaking scientific conservation project involving the ‘virtual restoration’ of one of the king’s 500-year-old tapestries
• A daily programme of costumed live interpretation restoring the atmosphere of court life to the great Tudor palace and enabling visitors to meet and interact with King Henry VIII, his Queen and his courtiers
• A series of special events and activities including a Tudor river pageant, the first jousting tournament at the palace in modern history, lectures, music concerts, theatre performances, and Tudor cookery in Henry VIII’s kitchens

Of the £100,000 Art Fund Prize nomination, Michael Day, Chief Executive of Historic Royal Palaces said: “2009 marked the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII’s accession to the throne, and was a milestone year for Hampton Court Palace, his former royal residence. To commemorate the occasion, the charity embarked upon the most ambitious programme of exhibitions, events, displays, and conservation work that we have ever undertaken, resulting in record numbers of visitors to the palace. I am delighted that years of research, preparation and hard work by staff across the organisation have captured the attention of the Art Fund Prize judges.”

London has two great flower shows: Chelsea in May and the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show in July. I went to Hampton Court yesterday. It rained as I entered and rained as I left – but the sun appeared in between and it was a good day. My interest, of course, was the garden designs. The RHS Best in Show went to a very worthy design by Dorset Cereals for an Edible Playground. It was a good idea for an outdoor learning area, and well made, but it does not make a contribution to garden design as a fine art. The Gardenvisit.com Design Award for Hampton Court 2008 went to the Holiday Inn Green Room designed by Sarah Eberle. Elegant and well-made is scored highly for being just the kind of space we should be making for the city of tomorrow – instead of those wretched garden-centerey plots made by the UK housebuilders who have seen such a spectacular decline in their businesses over the last 12 months.

A focus on domestic gardens is the strength of the Hampton Court Show. Chelsea provides haute couture for gardeners – nice for window shopping but with garden designs on the expensive side of exorbitant. Hampton Court is more like Oxford Street. Designers learn from Chelsea and use the ideas for everyman. To make this policy more apparent, we recommend buying some special fencing for the Hampton Court, to replace the standard contractor’s wire. This would not be to keep people out, as at Glastonbury. It would be to draw people in and provide more context for the garden designs. The fencing designers should learn from Hollywood and make fences which look like English streets from both sides. Visitors would then queue at house doors and enter a garden world, filled with garden designs they can relate to. This is what Oxford Street stores use mannequins for. At present, the garden designs at Hampton Court float in a sea of tents.

To commemorate the 500th anniversary of Andrea Mantegna’s death, The Triumphs of Caesar, often regarded as the artist’s finest works, have been re-presented at Hampton Court Palace with the ambition of improving visitor access to and appreciation of these wonderfully lavish artworks, both intellectually and visually.

Considered to be some of the most important Italian Renaissance paintings in the world, The Triumphs of Caesar were described as ‘the best thing Mantegna ever painted’  by Giorgio Vasari  in the 16th century, and their status as masterpieces has remained unchallenged ever since.  The series of nine paintings, probably commissioned by Francesco Gonzaga in about 1485, depict Julius Caesar on a triumphal chariot returning from his successful campaigns, in a procession of Roman soldiers, standard-bearers, musicians and the spoils of war including an assortment of booty (including arms, intricate sculpture and gold vases), exotic animals and captives. Mantegna found inspiration for the scenes he created in written accounts of Caesar’s celebratory processions through Rome as well as surviving Roman antiquities.

The canvases were acquired by Charles I in 1629 when his agent Daniel Nys travelled to Italy and purchased works of art, including paintings by Titian, Raphael and Caravaggio as well as The Triumphs of Caesar.  Soon after their addition to the Royal Collection they were brought to Hampton Court Palace, which has remained their permanent home ever since

Hampton Court Tickets  are avaialble online on GigSport