I asked for an insider’s look at life in a castle, but this is ridiculous! I’m on my hands and knees with three other gardeners, carefully pulling tiny weeds from a bed of flowers in front of Hampton Court Palace. There are 60 acres (.24 km²) of royal gardens, and right now they seem to go on forever.

It’s not easy running a 16th century palace, especially one as large and historically significant as Hampton Court. Just 30 minutes from London, Hampton Court was once home to Britain’s most famous kings and queens. Its most infamous resident was Henry VIII (1491–1547), the English king who had a penchant for killing off his wives.

Today the castle is cared for by Historic Royal Palaces. Although the nonprofit charity takes its job as caretaker of British heritage seriously, the staff certainly has fun doing it.

When I asked for an inside scoop on what it takes to run a palace, I was handed a shovel and a gardening hat. Now here I am, a Yank in the queen’s gardens, trying to distinguish between weeds and blooms.

The horticulturist to my right doesn’t notice my hesitation. He expertly trims and pulls, explaining how England’s most-visited garden is cared for. Last year, the gardening team of 38 planted 200,000 flower bulbs, grew 140,000 plants in the greenhouses and maintained more than 8,000 trees.

Hampton Court is home to England's most-visited garden.

“Many aspects of the gardens are 500 years old,” says Terry Gough, the gardens and estate manager who has stopped by to oversee my work. “We have to be sensitive to those features, as well as cope with the wear and tear of one million visitors a year.”

Mercifully, Gough hands my hoe to another gardener (is that relief on his face?) and takes me off to view the Maze, a tricky arrangement of shrubbery planted for William of Orange in 1690.

While children love wandering through the Maze, I’m more interested in the Great Vine. The plant is five feet wide and 234 years old.

“That’s even older than America,” Gough quips. Every year the trusty vine produces a crop of “Black Hamburg” grapes that are sold in palace shops.

Having seen the gardens, it’s time to head inside. We enter through Base Court, a vast square of dark-green grass surrounded by high brick walls. A light mist covers the ground and the smell of damp earth fills the air.

The massive courtyard is purposefully intimidating, for the royals wanted their enemies to feel humbled by their strength. While the first structures were built in 1236, it wasn’t until the 1550s that Henry VIII turned the palace into the colossal behemoth that it is today, boasting more than a thousand rooms (80 of which are open to visitors).

Helen Smith is one of the conservation housekeepers in charge of caring for all those rooms. When Gough turns me over to her care, she hands me a pair of white gloves, worn to protect the priceless tapestries, furnishings and other artwork that we’re going to “conserve.”

I follow Helen down several dark hallways to the King’s State Apartments, which were built for William of Orange, also known as William III (1650–1702). The enormous rooms are filled with centuries-old furnishings and priceless works of art. As she works on one of the drapes, Helen talks about William III, the king who married his cousin, Mary. Together they ruled as true partners.

From Helen’s entertaining account (which is more interesting than any history class I ever took), it seems that William III was a likeable chap. However, I’m beginning to despise that awful Henry VIII. Here, surrounded by the beauty he built at Hampton Court, I am constantly reminded of the terror and pain he caused.

But Helen has no time to wallow in the past. She pulls out a special vacuum and works on the tapestries. “Our goal is to preserve what we’ve got, whilst keeping it stable,” she says, showing me her careful technique.

“Dust is a huge issue,” Helen says. In fact, the palace takes it so seriously that they have developed new techniques for monitoring and recording levels of dust. Hampton Court is also home to the world-renowned Textile Studio, lauded for its cutting-edge conservation techniques.