;Plant and animal life Hampton Court Park is a walled deer park of around , with a herd of fallow deer, and has been open to the public since 1894. Verges by the A308 road lightly scattered with deciduous trees line the northern wall. These trees, with few evergreens, continue across much of the park. It is documented Cardinal Wolsey inclosed with a wall about 2,000 acres to form this park and Bushy Park for his purchase and reconstruction into an exceptionally grand house on the former manor house of Hampton. It formed what became before his death Hampton Court Palace, taken over by Henry VIII. The king was an avid hunter and had the park used for breeding rabbits and/or hares, pheasants and partridges. The inventory of Cromwell's goods made in 1659 records "about 700 deer", compared to "about 1,700" and "about 30 red deer" in Bushy Park. ;Mediaeval Oak A tree, called the Mediaeval Oak, in one of the tees for the golf course in the southern part of the park, is said to be 750 years old. ;Drained water meadow since medieval period The public towpath by the lowest part of the non-tidal Thames above Teddington Lock lies in all other directions apart from the palace. An emergency conditions flood meadow but not a lowered "Flood Storage Area" most of it is in planning High risk, affecting a small portion means that each year this area has a chance of flooding of greater than 3.3%. North of the road and a cluster of houses connected with the parks is a narrow set of Paddocks and Bushy Park; the Royal Mews graze horses on the park in the summer. The Long Water, a namesake of a more well-visited lake in Kensington Gardens, flows gently in the park roughly eastward from the back of Hampton Court Palace ending at the Golden Jubilee Fountain and is underground connected to a landscaped channel, the Longford River after the Upper Lodge Water Gardens and the Diana Fountain, Bushy Park.
The annual Hampton Court Flower Show is held in of the park. It is organized by the Royal Horticultural Society and began in 1990. Many prefer it to the better known Chelsea Flower Show because there is more space, and plants and equipment can be bought at the show. As it is the world's most popular event of this type extensive traffic jams can build up. The show has sometimes been criticized for risking damage to historic features in the park.
