Home Park covers an area of about 750 acres (303.5 ha). It is bordered by the formal gardens of Hampton Court Palace, a walled road between Hampton Court and Kingston Bridge, and Barge Walk running alongside a bend of the River Thames. The present outstanding features of the Park are its great avenues of lime trees radiating out from the Palace for around ¾ mile towards the east. In the central of these runs the Long Water, which at its eastern end now contains the Jubilee Fountain, created in 200?. There is also a Cross Avenue perpendicular to, and at the eastern end of, the Long Water. The avenues and Long Water form a coherent geometry with the formal Palace gardens.

The Great Storm of 1987 severely damaged the tree avenues which were already in steady decline. Re-planting began in the early 1990s, with replacement of the Cross Avenue. In 2004, the Long-Water Avenue trees were replaced.

The three main buildings of historic interest in the Park are Stud House and The Pavilion, which are private residences, and the Ice House near Hampton Wick gate, which is also not open to the public. Large areas of land on the eastern side of the Park, some prone to flooding, and mainly used for grazing and paddocks, are also inaccessible to the public. A golf course occupies a large area in the south of the Park, but is not physically enclosed and merges with the Park. Apart from the formal Long Water, there are various other areas of water, most notable the Hampton Wick Pond, Oak and Rick ponds, the latter used for model boats.

The Park has a herd of around 300 fallow deer. These are important in maintaining the Park's grasslands, including one of its key ecological features, acid grassland.

Each summer, around 24 acres of the Park are occupied by the Hampton Court Flower Show.

History

In medieval times, this area was open grazing land. It seems certain that it was Cardinal Wolsey in the early 16 th century who first enclosed with timber palings land that we now know as Home Park. Henry VIII walled the road from Kingston to Hampton, creating a clear division with emparked areas to the north, which eventually combined to become Bushy Park.

From around 1530 to the 1650s, Home Park was in two sections. The more southerly was the House Park, which contained fallow deer. Towards the north was the Course, providing a mile-long course for the racing of dogs in pursuit of deer. The Park was originally mainly planted with oaks, but these were largely stripped by speculators during the period of the Commonwealth in the mid-17 th century.

In the 1660s, after Charles II was restored to the throne, the great canal, now known as the Long Water, was dug, and its avenue of 550 lime trees first planted. After William III's accession in 1689, the extra diagonal avenues were added, as well as a cross avenue linking their far ends. The 600 metre terrace overlooking the Thames (now part of the formal gardens) was added in 1701: It ended in a bowling green, around which four substantial pavilions were built in 1702, but now only one (The Pavilion) remains.

In the eighteenth century, the Park developed as the home of a royal stud, and Stud House was built for the Master of the Horse. The latter house was changed and expanded in the Regency and George IV periods as a possible royal residence but never became so. The stud waxed and waned, involving both Home and Bushy Parks, but was largely sold in 1894. At one time, 16 walled paddocks existed along the north side of the park, but now only three remain in the north-west corner. One of these was used as allotments for ‘Grace and Favour' residents of the Palace up until the 1990s.

The Park was opened to the public in 1893, while the golf club opened in 1895. Soon after, model boating began on the Rick Pond. Parts of the Park were used for crop production during the 1939-45 War, although care seems to have been taken to protect ancient features of the Park's landscape.