Hatfield House

Hatfield House is a country house set in a large park, the Great Park, on the eastern side of the town of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England. The present Jacobean house was built in 1611 by Robert Cecil, First Earl of Salisbury and Chief Minister to King James I and has been the home of the Cecil family ever since. It is a prime example of Jacobean architecture.

The estate includes extensive grounds and surviving parts of the earlier Royal Palace of Hatfield. Only part of this still exists, a short distance from the present house. That palace was the childhood home and favourite residence of Queen Elizabeth I. Built in 1497 by the Bishop of Ely, King Henry VII's minister John Cardinal Morton, it comprised four wings in a square surrounding a central courtyard. The palace was seized by Henry VIII with other church properties.

The palace was featured in a range of movies. One of them was "Tom Raider" with Angelina Jolie where the house is shown as "Croft Manor". It was also "Wayne Manor" in the first Batman movies.

Unfortunately I made a configuration mistake with the autofocus of my camera. This is the reason why many of the interior pictures are a bit blurry.