Anne of Cleves House…maybe

According to my colleagues, only the Americans are fascinated by the Tudors.  From the number of specials about Henry and his wives, mistresses, religions and politics on television over here, I would respectfully disagree.   However, to their point, I do jump at anything 16^th century royal.

We recently came across the Anne of Cleves House.  According to the reports, Henry presented the house to his queen when he divorced her in 1541.  Unlike the first divorce, this one was somewhat amicable and Anne of Cleves came away with many royal tokens (and her head, which was more than Anne Boleyn could boast).

We were told the house was a wonderful example of a late Medieval timber framed building. The earliest parts date from the late 1400’s and there was period furnishing throughout.

Once again, I think we would disagree.

None of the furnishing was original.  The gardens outside were nice, but the house looked much unloved and uncared for.  As we read the sparsely provided information on the house, we came to find out that Anne of Cleves had never actually lived there.  In fact, she’d never even visited!  She much preferred Richmond Palace which also came in her annulment settlement.

Well, chalk one weekend trip up to some fake British history.