Hampton Court occupied a Thames-side estate before becoming a royal palace. The Knights Hospitaller held the manor in the medieval period, and courtier Giles Daubeney leased and improved it in the late fifteenth century. Cardinal Thomas Wolsey acquired the lease and, from about 1515, created a vast brick residence suited to Henry VIII's chief minister. Courtyards, kitchens, lodgings, a chapel, and formal approaches accommodated a household and diplomatic theater on a near-royal scale. Wolsey hosted Henry and foreign envoys there while using architecture to advertise service, wealth, and political reach.

As Wolsey's position collapsed, he transferred Hampton Court to Henry VIII in 1529. The king expanded it with the Great Hall, royal apartments, kitchens, a chapel, tennis facilities, and landscapes for hunting and display. All six of Henry's wives were associated with the palace. Edward VI was born there in 1537, and Jane Seymour died soon afterward. Under Mary I and Elizabeth I, Hampton Court remained a major setting for court life. The 1604 conference convened by James I helped initiate the translation later known as the King James Bible.

After the Civil War, Charles I was held at Hampton Court in 1647 and escaped from confinement. The Commonwealth considered disposal but retained the property; Charles II later revived court use. William III and Mary II commissioned Christopher Wren to replace the Tudor palace with a modern Baroque one. Work beginning in 1689 demolished large sections but stopped before the old complex vanished. The resulting juxtaposition of Tudor brick courts and Baroque stone facades is not a later museum reconstruction: it records an interrupted royal rebuilding campaign and two distinct visions of monarchy.

A construction accident in 1689 killed workers, and Mary II's death in 1694 reduced the project's momentum. William completed enough apartments for occupation, while later Georgian monarchs used Hampton Court less. From the eighteenth century, grace-and-favor residents occupied subdivided suites. Queen Victoria opened the palace more fully to the public in 1838. Fire in 1986 severely damaged the King's Apartments, killing resident Lady Daphne Gale. A long restoration used surviving material, documentary evidence, traditional craft, and visible replacement to recover rooms without claiming that all post-fire fabric was original.

Hampton Court is owned by the Crown and cared for by the independent charity Historic Royal Palaces. Ticketed routes include Henry VIII's Great Hall and kitchens, the Chapel Royal, William III's apartments, gardens, and later collections. Much Tudor and Baroque fabric survives, while missing apartments, changed furnishings, conservation campaigns, and the 1986 reconstruction are integral to what visitors see. The maze, Great Vine, formal gardens, and wider park also reflect different periods. The palace's value lies in this material overlap: Wolsey's ambition, Tudor dynasty, Stuart conflict, Baroque replacement, Georgian retreat, public museum, and modern restoration occupy one continuing site.