We reverted to our normal breakfast time of 8.30 before driving the Hampton Court Palace.

Hampton Court is currently undergoing some restoration which meant the iconic view of the main entrance was covered with scaffolding. The size of the building is impressive but somehow the history of this amazing place didn’t come alive for me.

The one exception was the Chapel Royal which has stunning architecture and is also one of the areas that has maintained its original use since it was built. Maybe I was feeling the atmosphere of a ’space’ that has remained constant but flowing throughout the years…

The artwork displayed at Hampton Court both on the walls and in frames is impressive and we each had our favourite pieces that we lingered over.

We didn’t explore the gardens as much as we would have liked. It was rather hot and we were also running out of time. We did however walk to see The Great Vine, the largest grape vine in the world and also The Royal (real) Tennis Court which dates to 1625. A garden I would have loved to visit is the Magic Garden, I love a bit of fantasy and it has a dragon! But sadly, adults are not allowed in unless they are accompanied by a child. It was suggested that we could borrow a child and come back another day…

We were a little late back to the hotel so we chose to book into the hotel restaurant, allowing us to chill out after our long day out. The food quality was good but the combinations of dishes didn’t quite work for us. When Mr C’s sirloin steak arrived it was a thick cut more like rump, he did query if he had been served the right cut as did another customer. Both were informed that it was sirloin but cut thicker than usual!

Rather than stay in the hotel for a night cap we strolled across Windsor Bridge to the George Inn which was a lot livelier than our previous visits and presumably because it was a Friday there were no calls for last orders as there had been the previous nights.

Brooklands Museum houses historic aircraft including a Vickers Wellington bomber recovered from Loch Ness in 1985, a British Airways Concorde, G-BBDG (c/n 202), the UK’s first production Concorde, and now also owns the 40% scale Concorde model “G-CONC” displayed for many years as a gate guardian at Heathrow Airport, until movement in 2007. After restoration and repainting, the model was relocated for similar duty at Brooklands Museum’s public entrance off Brooklands Drive on 29 September 2012.

There are civil and military aircraft on display including a Vickers Vanguard, Viscount 800 and Standard VC-10. The majority of exhibits were built at Brooklands or have close associations with the site. The VC-10 was built and first flown at Brooklands in 1964 and after airline service with British United as G-ASIX and later British Caledonian Airways, in 1974 it became the official VIP transport for the Sultan of Oman until retired and flown back to Brooklands on 6 July 1987 and donated to Brooklands Museum by the Sultan of Oman’s Royal Flight.

Brooklands was a 2.767-mile (4.453 km) motor racing circuit and aerodrome built near Weybridge in Surrey, England, United Kingdom. It opened in 1907 and was the world’s first purpose-built ‘banked’ motor racing circuit^{[n 1]} as well as one of Britain’s first airfields, which also became Britain’s largest aircraft manufacturing centre by 1918, producing military aircraft such as the Wellington and civil airliners like the Viscount and VC-10.^[1]

The circuit hosted its last race in August 1939 and today part of it forms the Brooklands Museum, a major aviation and motoring museum, as well as a venue for vintage car, motorcycle and other transport-related events.

The Brooklands motor circuit was the brainchild of Hugh Fortescue Locke-King, and was the first purpose-built banked motor race circuit in the world. Following the Motor Car Act 1903, Britain was subject to a blanket 20 mph (32 km/h) speed limit on public roads: at a time when nearly 50% of the world’s new cars were produced in France, there was concern that Britain’s infant auto-industry would be hampered by the inability to undertake sustained high-speed testing.[2] King commissioned Colonel Capel Lofft Holden of the Royal Artillery to design the projected circuit and work began in 1906.[3]

Requirements of speed and spectator visibility led to the Brooklands track being built as a 100 ft (30 m) wide, 2.767 mi (4.453 km) long, banked oval. The banking was nearly 30 feet (9.1 m) high in places. In addition to the oval, a bisecting “Finishing Straight” was built, increasing the track length to 3.369 mi (5.422 km), of which 1.250 mi (2.012 km) was banked. It could host up to 287,000 spectators in its heyday.[4]

Owing to the complications of laying tarmacadam on banking, and the expense of laying asphalt, the track was built in uncoated concrete. This led in later years to a somewhat bumpy ride, as the surface suffered differential settlement over time.

More information can be found on Wikipedia.