Wolf Hall: From Putney to the Tower

Wolf Hall opens in Putney in 1500 with a teenage Cromwell on the ground, knocked down by his father. He runs away to France and does not come back for years. The old village on the Thames was then a ferry crossing upstream from London; today it is a London suburb, and no record survives of the exact house where he was born.

Location precision: No record survives of Cromwell's birthplace; the pin marks the old village centre in Putney.

Visitor guidance: Putney is a London suburb on the Thames, with mainline rail services.

For years Cromwell's London life centred on Austin Friars, the friary where he kept a townhouse. Mantel sets many scenes in the house, and it is where the Cromwell family lived while his career rose. He bought neighbouring properties and ended up with one of the largest private houses in London, with its own chapel and over fifty rooms. After his fall the house was seized by the Crown. The site is now offices, but Drapers' Hall and the Dutch Church still stand there.

Visitor guidance: The site is in the City of London; the Dutch Church and Drapers' Hall are on Austin Friars.

York Place was Cardinal Wolsey's London palace, grand enough to rival the King's own houses. When Wolsey fell in 1530, Henry VIII took it and made it the basis of Whitehall; Anne Boleyn and Henry were married there in 1533. In the trilogy the seizure is part of the larger stripping of the Cardinal's goods, which Cromwell watches as his own star rises. Most of the palace is gone. The Banqueting House is the one complete building left, and the site is now Whitehall.

Visitor guidance: The Banqueting House stands on Whitehall; the surrounding streets are public.

After Wolsey's fall, Cromwell moved the Cardinal and his entourage to Esher, a country house in Surrey. It was a retreat, then a form of house arrest: Wolsey was kept there as the King's men dismantled his power. Mantel uses the move to show Cromwell's loyalty to the master who made him, even as he begins negotiating with the King. The old house was rebuilt long ago; the present Esher Place is a trade union college, and the old gatehouse is the main survivor.

Wolsey died at Leicester Abbey on 30 November 1530, on his way south to face treason charges. He arrived ill and told the abbot he had come to leave his bones among them. In Wolf Hall the news reaches Cromwell as a shock and a debt: he vows to take vengeance on those involved in the Cardinal's downfall. The abbey was dissolved in 1538 and demolished; its site is now Abbey Park, where low stone walls trace the lost church and cloister.

Visitor guidance: The abbey site is in Abbey Park, Leicester, and is open to the public.

Anne Boleyn was crowned queen at Westminster Abbey in 1533, after her marriage to Henry VIII. In Wolf Hall the ceremony is Cromwell's triumph: he has managed the annulment, the marriage and the coronation, and the abbey is packed for the new queen. The abbey had crowned English monarchs since 1066 and remains a royal church. The building is still a working church and a major visitor site.

Visitor guidance: Westminster Abbey is open to visitors outside service times; booking ahead is advised.

Bring Up the Bodies opens at Wolf Hall, the Seymour family's Wiltshire seat, where Henry VIII and Cromwell are guests in 1535. The visit is the quiet centre of the story: the King is falling for Jane Seymour while Anne Boleyn is still queen. The first novel takes its name from the house, and the title's wolf points both to the Seymour seat and to the Latin proverb about man being wolf to man. Nothing of the old house survives above ground; its foundations were uncovered in 2017–18 near Burbage.

Wolsey built Hampton Court as a cardinal's palace and gave it to Henry VIII in 1529, when he knew his enemies were closing in. In the trilogy the gift belongs to the same stripping of the Cardinal's goods that follows his fall; later the palace becomes the setting for Jane Seymour's short triumph. She gave Henry his son Edward in 1537 and died there two weeks later. Visitors can still see the Great Hall and the gatehouse known as Anne Boleyn's gate.

Visitor guidance: Hampton Court Palace is open to visitors; check opening times before you go.

The Tower is where the trilogy's reckoning falls. Thomas More, whose death closes Wolf Hall, was executed on Tower Hill outside the walls in 1535. Anne Boleyn was held and executed inside the Tower in 1536, and her brother George Boleyn followed her to Tower Hill. Four years later Cromwell himself died on the same hill, on 28 July 1540, the last scene of The Mirror and the Light. The castle is now a visitor attraction; Tower Hill is the public space just north of it.

Visitor guidance: The Tower of London is open to visitors; Tower Hill is the public space just north of the castle.