After a century, Hampton Court gets an extension

The first new building to be constructed within Hampton Court Palace for more than a century has been opened by the Prince of Wales. Designed by Feilden Clegg Bradley, the building forms part of a £2.4m visitor centre next to the Surrey palace’s main gates. The other part has been converted out of a 17th-century barrack complex.

The building is a single-storey extension that contains a large learning space and welcome area. It blends together a modern sliding window wall and a shallow hipped roof that is covered in handmade clay tiles to match the roofs around it.

Two ventilation stacks that incorporate seasoned oak louvres make contemporary references to the palace’s many ornate Tudor chimneys and make a rejoinder to the sculptural stone gateposts next door.

The barrack block facing the extension has been converted into a ticket office, shop and more learning spaces. A new courtyard has been created between the two buildings.

The visitor centre was partly funded by the Clore Duffield Foundation and built by the Chorus Group.

Gardiner & Theobald was project manager, with King Shaw Associates as services engineer, Alan Baxter & Associates as structural engineer, Todd Longstaffe-Gowan as landscape architect and Bucknall Austin as quantity surveyor.