Hampton Court Palace railway station which is immediately to the south of Hampton Court Bridge in East Molesey, and by London bus routes 111, 216, 411 and R68. Hampton Court Palace Hampton Court Palace is a royal palace in the borough of Richmond upon Thames, south west and upstream of central London on the River Thames. Building of the palace began in 1515 for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, a favourite of King Henry VIII. In 1529, as Wolsey fell from favour, the cardinal gave the palace to the King to check his disgrace; Henry VIII later enlarged it. Along with St James's Palace, it
Thomas Wolsey papal legate to dissolve thirty decayed monasteries where monastic life had virtually ceased in practice, including monasteries in Ipswich and Oxford. However, he then used the income to found a grammar school in Ipswich (The King's School, Ipswich) and Cardinal College in Oxford (in 1532, after Wolsey's fall, college was refounded as King Henry VIII's College by Henry VIII; it is now known as Christ Church). In 1528 he began to limit the benefit of clergy. He also attempted, as legate, to force reform on monastic orders like the Augustinian canons. Wolsey died five years before Henry's dissolution of the