Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
St James's Palace
St James's Palace
was
built on the site of a lepers' hospital which Henry VIII bought in
1532. Bloody Mary died here in 1558 (her heart and bowels were buried in the Chapel
Royal), and it was here that Charles I chose to sleep the night before his execution, so
as not to have to listen to his scaffold being erected. When Whitehall Palace burnt
down in 1698, St James's became the principal royal residence and even today it
remains the o
cial residence, with every ambassador to the UK accredited to the
“Court of St James's”, even though the monarchy moved over to Buckingham Palace in
1837. The main red-brick gate-tower, which looks out on to St James's Street, is a
survivor from Tudor times; the rest of the modest, rambling, crenellated complex was
restored and remodelled by Nash, and now provides a home for Princess Anne and
Princess Alexandra and for the staff of princes William and Harry.
2
Chapel Royal
Open for services only: Oct to Easter Sun 8.30am & 11.15am •
!
Green Park
St James's Palace is off-limits to the public, with the exception of the
Chapel Royal
, which
is accessed from Cleveland Row. Charles I took Holy Communion in the chapel on the
morning of his execution, and here, too, the marriages of William and Mary, George III
and Queen Charlotte, Victoria and Albert and George V and Queen Mary took place.
One of the few remaining sections of Henry VIII's palace, it was redecorated in the
1830s, though the gilded strap-work ceiling matches the Tudor original erected to
commemorate the brief marriage of Henry and Anne of Cleves (and thought to have
been the work of Hans Holbein). The chapel's musical pedigree is impressive, with Tallis,
Byrd, Gibbons and Purcell all having worked here as organists. Purcell even had rooms in
the palace, which the poet Dryden used to use in order to hide from his creditors.
Queen's Chapel
Open for services only: Easter to July Sun 8.30am & 11.15am •
!
Green Park
Despite being on the other side of Marlborough Road, the
Queen's Chapel
is of
cially
part of St James's Palace. A perfectly proportioned classical church, it was designed by
Inigo Jones (with Gibbons and Wren helping with the decoration) for the Infanta of
Spain, intended child bride of Charles I, and later completed for his French wife,
Henrietta Maria, who was also a practising Catholic. A little further down
Marlborough Road is the glorious Art Nouveau memorial to
Queen Alexandra
(wife of
Edward VII), the last work of Alfred Gilbert (of Eros fame), comprising a bronze
fountain crammed with allegorical figures and flanked by robust lampposts.
Clarence House
Aug Mon-Fri 10am-4pm, Sat & Sun 10am-5.30pm • £9 •
T
020 7766 7303,
W
royalcollection.org.uk •
!
Green Park
John Nash was also responsible for
Clarence House
, which is attached to the southwest
wing of St James's Palace. Built in the 1820s for William IV and used as his principal
residence, it was occupied by various royals until the death of George VI, after which it
became the home of the Queen Mother, George's widow for nearly sixty years. It's
currently the of
cial London home of Charles and Camilla (
W
princeofwales.gov.uk),
but a handful of rooms can be visited over the summer when the royals are in Scotland.
Visits (by guided tour) must be booked in advance, as they are extremely popular. The
rooms are pretty unremarkable, so apart from a peek behind the scenes in a working
royal palace, or a few mementoes of the Queen Mum, the main draw is the twentieth-
century British paintings on display by the likes of Walter Sickert and Augustus John.
St James's Street and Jermyn Street
St James's Street
and
Jermyn Street
(pronounced “German Street”), have been, along
with Savile Row in Mayfair, the spiritual home of English gentlemen's fashion since the
