Shire Horses at Hampton Court Palace

The View From Here — 19 May 2025

Horse tram — Credit: Author

Introduction

At Hampton Court Palace during weekends and holidays once the better weather arrives, they have these rare Shire horses out to pull the horse trams around the grounds for visitors.

You can tell we’re in the Great Fountain Garden by those huge Yew trees in the background (main picture), which The View From Here featured at the end of April.

Today, however, we’re talking about the Shire horses and giving the coachmen a mention too.

Shire horses

The Shire horses live at the palace stables about a mile (1.6 km) away from the palace itself. They start working when they’re about five or six years old. The sort of work they do isn’t only to pull carriages, or trams, like this one. They do real work in the fields too.

There are wildflower meadows around the palace where the horses graze. By the end of the summer, the horses are harnessed up to mow the 10 acres the old-fashioned way. That means taking your time! So mowing those 10 acres takes them all day.

Careful

As these horses weigh a ton (~910 kg), you have to be careful with them.

Yet, these horses are very patient, and work with you — so long as you treat them right!

The head coachman, who looks after the horses, said that a unique feature about them is that, if you put them in a bad mood in the morning, they stay that way all day.

Therefore, he treats them like colleagues because you’ve got to treat them right, if you want to get the best out of them.

Quite understandable. Imagine having to handle a ton of bad mood all day!

History

They were originally bred for King Henry VIII (reigned 1509–1547), who wanted a powerful war horse. They’ve been a feature of the landscape of Hampton Court Palace for 500 years.

But these horses aren’t just associated with the Tudors (that’s Henry VIII’s era). They are part of the history of England. They’ve been the workhorses on the land before motorised farm equipment was available.

In fact, Shire horses became so successful that by the start of the First World War (1914), a million of them were working in the UK.

Sadly, they are now endangered with only 3,000 left in the whole world and 11 of these precious horses are at Hampton Court Palace.

Coachman

The outfit the coachman is wearing is typical of bygone days. He’d wear a waistcoat and neck gear called a ‘stock’— the forerunner of the modern tie. It’s also known as a stock tie.

Not being into equestrian sports, I hadn’t realised that today’s riding outfits for e.g. dressage still require wearing a stock tie. So they are still available and worn today in special circumstances.

Then there’s the black bowler hat you can see the coachman wearing.

Tram rides

These horse-drawn tram rides take you around the grounds at a comfortable pace of 5 mph (8 kph).

We didn’t take a ride during this visit, but enjoyed one last summer.

Last year the weather was better when we went and the coachman wore a lighter outfit (see below). He’s wearing short sleeves and a yellow waistcoat. He’d ditched the bowler hat for a lighter straw hat and went for a more modern tie than the old-fashioned stock tie.

Shire horses — Credit: Author

Finally…

There were several horses of different colours. It’s pure chance that the two photos of the coachmen I took on both occasions happen to be driving what looks like the same pair of horses.

Some of the Shire horses are dappled grey and might be teamed up with a brown one.

Visitors love them and they are certainly a delightful feature of Hampton Court Palace.

Thank you for reading

If you’d like to know more about these rare horses, I wrote more about them here:

[embed]An Old-Fashioned Horse Tram Stepping back in time for a few minutesmedium.com

And the story about the Yew trees from the end of April:

[embed]A Picnic with a View The View From Here — 28 April 2025medium.com

People, who’ve asked to be tagged: Aidan McCarthy, Lu Skerdoo,

For The View From Here: Dawn Ulmer