Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Guards' complicated history, and gives a potted military history of the country since
the Civil War. Among the exhibits are a lock of Wellington's hair and a whole load of
war booty, from Dervish prayer mats plundered from Sudan in 1898 to items taken
from an Iraqi POW during the first Gulf War. The museum also displays (and sells) an
impressive array of toy soldiers.
Buckingham Palace
The Mall • Late July to Aug daily 9.30am-7pm, Sept 9.30am-6.30pm • State Rooms £19; State Rooms & Garden Highlights £27.75;
booking fee & postage £2.45 per ticket •
T
020 7766 7300,
W
royalcollection.org.uk •
!
Green Park
The graceless colossus of
Buckingham Palace
, popularly known as “Buck House”, has
served as the monarch's permanent London residence only since Queen Victoria's reign.
It began its days in 1702 as the Duke of Buckingham's city residence, built on the site of
a notorious brothel, and was sold by the duke's son to George III in 1762. The building
was overhauled by Nash in the late 1820s for the Prince Regent, and again by Aston
Webb in 1913 for George V, producing a palace that's about as bland as it's possible to be.
For ten months of the year there's little to do here, with the Queen in residence and
the palace closed to visitors - not that this deters the crowds who mill around the
railings all day, and gather in some force to watch the
Changing of the Guard
(see box,
p.48), in which a detachment of the Queen's Foot Guards marches to appropriate
martial music from St James's Palace (unless it rains, that is). If the Queen is at home,
the Royal Standard flies from the roof of the palace and four guards patrol; if not, the
Union flag flutters aloft and just two guards stand out front.
Traditionally, unless you were one of the select thirty thousand society debutantes
attending a “coming out” party, you had little chance of ever seeing inside Buckingham
Palace. The debutantes were given the boot in 1958 and more democratic garden
parties were established. Since 1993, however, the hallowed portals have been
grudgingly opened for two months of the year.
Timed tickets
can be purchased online
or
from the box of
ce on the south side of the palace; queues vary enormously, but you
may have some time to wait before your allocated slot.
2
The interior
Of the palace's 775 rooms you get to see around twenty of the grandest ones, but with
the Queen and her family in Scotland, there's usually very little sign of life. The visitors'
entrance is via the
Ambassadors' Court
on Buckingham Palace Road, which lets you
into the enormous
Quadrangle
, from where you can see the Nash portico, built in
warm Bath stone, that used to overlook St James's Park.
Through the courtyard, you hit the
Grand Hall
, decorated like some gloomy hotel
lobby, from where Nash's rather splendid winding, curlicued
Grand Staircase
, with its
floral gilt-bronze balustrade and white plaster friezes, leads past a range of very fine
royal portraits, all beautifully lit by Nash's glass dome. Beyond, the small Guard Room
leads into the
Green Drawing Room
, a blaze of unusually bright green silk walls, framed
by lattice-patterned pilasters, and a heavily gilded coved ceiling. It was here that the
Raphael Cartoons used to hang, until they were permanently loaned to the V&A.
The scarlet and gold
Throne Room
features a Neoclassical plaster frieze in the style
of the Elgin Marbles, depicting the Wars of the Roses. The thrones themselves are
disappointingly un-regal - just two pink his 'n' hers chairs initialled ER and P - whereas
George IV's outrageous sphinx-style chariot seats, nearby, look more the part.
From the Picture Gallery to the Ballroom
Nash originally designed a spectacular hammerbeam ceiling for the
Picture Gallery
, which
stretches right down the centre of the palace. Unfortunately, it leaked and was eventually
replaced in 1914 by a rather dull glazed ceiling. Still, the paintings on show here are
FROM TOP
BUCKINGHAM PALACE
P.68
; ST JAMES'S PALACE
P.74
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