In 1537 Henry VIII commissioned the Royal Mews on Hampton Court Green to house the King's Horse and courtiers who were entitled to stabling. It cost £130 and was and built by Christopher Dickinson. It is probably on the site of stables built for Cardinal Wolsey. Above the stables were haylofts, and tack rooms, and in the attics lodgings for the officers of the stable. Substantial repairs, including reroofing, were made in 1661. The Tuscan arcade in the north-west range probably dates from this period.
During the 1550s the coach, a new form of passenger road transport, and favoured by aristocrats and diplomats, arrived in England from Germany and the Low Countries. In 1564 Queen Elizabeth I acquired the first royal coach and Dutchman William Boonen was appointed as Queen's Coachman. In 1568 a new coach house was built at the Royal Mews at Charing Cross and alterations were made at Greenwich, and in 1570 the Great Barn was built at Hampton Court Green. This was the beginning of a revolution in royal transport which resonated through the south east of England. Hitherto the royal household had travelled up the Thames by barge or moved on horseback, thus restricting the distances it could cover and where royal houses were located.
The Royal Mews are depicted in the background of a view of Hampton Court by Leonard Knyff of about 1702. The stables are also shown on John Rocque's map of Middlesex of 1754. They are not clearly depicted until the OS Map of 1863 where they appear with the existing C19 attachments and other small detached buildings to the south west and south east of the great barn. These had gone by the 1897 OS survey.
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