Since this was my first Halloween in London, I wanted to mark the occasion somehow. I’m not a big partier, nor did I want to do anything on a Sunday night (having work the next morning does mean I need at least some sleep), but I still wanted to “celebrate” the day by doing something special. I’ve been meaning to visit Hampton Court Palace for a bit now, and when I saw that they had “Halloween at Hampton Court Palace” running during October half term (which included Halloween itself), it felt like a perfect opportunity! I had a great time, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself, both with the spooky Halloween theme, and just in visiting the palace itself. Here’s how my Halloween adventure went down!

I had pre-booked my tickets to the palace for 1:00pm (due to the pandemic, all Historic Royal Palaces locations require booking in advance), and CityMapper told me it would take approximately 76 minutes to get from where I live to Hampton Court Palace. A bit of a trek, but not too bad all things considered. To get to the palace via public transportation, you’ll need to take a train to Hampton Court, which you can catch from Waterloo, Vauxhall, or Clapham Junction (those are the stops you can access via the tube). Things were going smoothly until I got to Vauxhall to catch the train, and due to bad weather in the morning (and the night before), every train departing from platform 8 was delayed (all trains from Vauxhall to Hampton Court depart from platform 8, in case you were wondering). Not only were they delayed, but there was no time posted for departure, so it was just me and loads of other people stood on the platform, listening to an endless repetition of “the 11:31 train to Hampton Court is delayed,” “the 11:46 train to Guilford is delayed”… you get the picture. This resulted in me getting on a train much later than I had hoped, but ultimately, I was only around 15 minutes late to my entry time, and they didn’t have any issue with it. It was a bit of a reminder to be alert when catching trains though as they randomly announced that the train to Hampton Court would be departing from platform three, and then by the time I got to that platform, the train was there and almost ready to depart! Thankfully I got on and was on my way!

Getting from the train station to the palace is super easy. There are signs to follow, but essentially, you’ll walk straight out, cross the bridge, and the palace will be slightly beyond that and on the right! As a budgetary side note, my journey from start to finish cost me £11.60 roundtrip paying contactless. I’m pretty sure I was traveling during peak hours for both the train and the tube, but that’s a good ballpark price for getting to Hampton Court Palace from zone 1-2 of London, and back!

Coming up the drive to the palace is a sight to see, and then after my ticket had been scanned, I was greeted by cobwebs and pumpkins everywhere to mark the season. Base Court, where you enter, was also soundtracked by spooky noises to get you into the spirit of Halloween. I started out my afternoon by admiring Base Court, before heading to the cellars for a 20 minute ghost story telling session. The guide informed everyone there about the ghosts that have been seen in the castle, including those that have been seen by staff and guests recently! It was a good way to get myself into the spooky, scary mindset for the rest of my Halloween at Hampton Court adventure. I also picked up a Ghost Hunters Journal, which outlined the seven ghost sightings you might encounter while visiting. They had special areas set up for these sights so you could try to spot them yourself!

While the Halloween decorations were exciting, there was still the palace itself to explore. I started my non Halloween visit with Henry VIII’s kitchens. There you can wander through Fish Court, into the massive Great Kitchen, and through the serving place to see how meals would’ve been prepared while Henry VIII ruled. From there you could access the ghostly area of The Sandeman in the cellars. I found the kitchens the quickest area to get through, but it’s astonishing how large it was, and it’s hard to imagine how many people were actually being fed by those kitchens!

Fun side note: Use the toilets off of Base Court (at least the women’s) to use a stall dedicated to one of Henry’s wives. There are six stalls so you could be in a divorced, beheaded, died, or survived stall, and have it be attributed to the proper queen!

From Henry VIII’s kitchens, you’ll walk through the Anne Boleyn Archway to get to Clock Court. Under the archway though, you can take a left and climb some stairs to get to Henry VIII’s apartments. For Halloween, just before you went in, they had carved seven pumpkins: one to look like Henry VIII, and the other six as his six wives. Quite impressive and cute to say the least!

The apartments tell the story of Henry’s six wives, while also highlighting the large meals and banquets the king would host. You’ll wander through the Great Hall, which is adorned with tapestries, and beautiful stained glass windows. The tables in the middle of the hall have fun facts written on them so you can read about what life at court was like (mainly from a food perspective), and how you’d be expected to behave had you attended a royal banquet with Henry VIII. You’ll also get to see artwork of Henry VIII, and his various wives, along with his heirs. The ghostly apparition in the apartments was “the shrieking queen,” where you could sit and watch a seance where Catherine Howard made a ghostly appearance.

Emerging from Henry VIII’s apartments, you can directly go into “Georgian Story” where you’ll go through the Queen’s Guard Chamber, public drawing room, and the Queen’s gallery as you wander through the Georgian impact on Hampton Court Palace. There’s also an art gallery you can visit, as well as a cartoon gallery for more art viewings if that’s of interest to you. Exiting this part of the palace, you can then move onto William III’s apartments. This was more expansive than I thought it would be, and the diagram on the map you can pick up as you enter the palace didn’t portray nearly all that you can see in this area. The rooms are filled with artwork, and you can learn about yet another era of the palace’s history. As you exit into Clock Court, you can look up at the astronomical clock, which is also quite impressive!

From there, I decided to scope out the remaining spots in my ghost hunters journal so I could make the most of my Halloween at the palace. There was a “Gallery of the Damned” with paintings of Thomas Cromwell, Anne Boleyn, William III, Cardinal Wolsey, and more that came to life to depict their tragic deaths. It felt very Disney Haunted Mansion to me, but in a good way! I also visited an area dedicated to “the executioner” and the Grey Lady, both of whom had elaborate set ups to showcase where they’ve been sighted in the past. There were also several employees (actors?) dressed up as the apparitions who wandered certain parts of the grounds, but I’m not entirely sure who they were all representing as they wandered silently. I’m sure one was the Grey Lady, and another was the wandering queen, but my best guess for the others would be a buried workman (he rattled chains so maybe that was a clue?) and there was one other who looked like Louis XIV, but obviously that’s the wrong country! I thought it was all quite clever, and a very fun way to use the superstitions surrounding the palace as educational material while taking advantage of the time of year!

After going through all the indoor areas, I ventured out into the gardens, which are sprawling. There are so many with different names, and I definitely didn’t get to them all (although that’s mainly because it started raining very heavily and I wanted to seek some dry shelter)! There are beautiful fountains though, and in some areas, it felt very Versailles-esque. There’s a canal that runs along part of the gardens, and the grounds are covered with geese. There’s also a giant maze you can get lost in before finding the “quick exit” sign and ducking out lest you get left behind in there (shhh, that’s definitely not what I did).

Overall, I really enjoyed my visit to Hampton Court Palace! The Halloween decorations, and the spooky ghost hunting made the visit feel that much more fun, and I loved seeing how into it the palace got. From the sounds, the decorations, the special areas… it was very creative, and educational at the same time. They did a great job of balancing out the Halloween themed areas and the actual visiting areas so that it didn’t feel too much like a gimmick, but that instead, it enhanced the visit. I’m sure it’s a lovely visit outside of Halloween, but I’m glad I spent my October 31st at the palace!