“Queen Victoria’s Buckingham Palace” by Amanda Foreman and Lucy Peter

Two weeks after becoming queen, the 18-year-old Victoria moved the household from Kensington Palace to Buckingham Palace. The new home was still a work in progress; it had been a country estate until William IV convinced Parliament to fund an expansion. The money ran out before it was finished and then William died.

It would be Victoria and her soon-to-be husband Albert of Saxe-Coburg to complete the palace to the point where it would be recognizable today. But as Queen Victoria’s Buckingham Palace makes clear, they did more than finish a building. Victoria and Albert turned the palace into an icon of the royal family and Britain in general. 

Written by Amanda Foreman and Lucy Peter, the book serves as the catalog and introduction to the “Queen Victoria’s Palace” exhibition which concluded yesterday. The exhibition was staged in honor of the 200^th anniversary of Victoria’s birth. The book, however, is more than an exhibition souvenir; it stands on its own as a succinct account of how Victoria and Albert transformed Buckingham Palace. 

The transformation was profound. What had been a “country townhouse” for Queen Charlotte, wife of George III, would become a family home, a venue for grand state occasions, and a symbol of the British monarchy. The vision for the palace would outlast Victoria’s self-imposed exile at Balmoral Castle in Scotland after Albert’s death from what was likely typhoid in 1861. Even after she returned more than a decade later, she generally refused to host any event similar to what she and Albert had done together. It was Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli who suggested she host something that was entirely different – and it became one of the best known events associated with the palace and the royal family: the summer garden party.

The book makes generous use of the photographs, paintings, and artifacts maintained by the Royal Collections Trust. And it includes far more than Victoria’s dresses. We can see paintings and drawings of the royal children, the fancy costume balls, the prime ministers, the state events, how the palace structure grew, and what many of the state and private rooms looked like.

Amanda Foreman

Foreman is a historian, columnist, and Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the History Department at the university of Liverpool. She is the author of the prize-winning best sellers Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and A World on Fire: A Epic History of Two Nations Divided; Georgiana’s World; and the forthcoming The World Made by Women: A History of Women from the Apple to the Pill. She lives in New York. Lucy Peter is assistant curator of Paintings for the Royal Collection Trust and co-author of Portrait of the Artist and Royal Childhood. She lives in London. 

Queen Victoria’s Buckingham Palace is a well-written and well-researched account of how a building became what is likely the most recognizable symbol of Great Britain.

Top photograph: Lucy Peter with one of the dresses include in the Queen Victoria exhibition at the palace.

Dancing King Stories: The Victoria Memorial

Queen Victoria died in 1901, after the longest reign by any British monarch (a record broken only by Queen Elizabeth II). To honor her memory, a memorial was designed that same year. The central monument – what most tourists think of as the Victoria Memorial– was constructed between 1906 and 1911. The memorial was not completed until 1924.

The entire semi-circular design as constructed in front of Buckingham Palace includes the Dominion Gates (the Canada Gate, the Australia Gate, and the South and West Africa Gates); the Memorial Gardens; and the central monument, built of 2,300 tons of Carrara marble and comprised of the monument atop a staired terrace.

Many a time have I walked around those gardens and not realized they’re part of the overall Victoria Memorial.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Top photograph: a panoramic view of the gardens, monument, and Buckingham Palace.

Dancing King Stories: The Buckingham Palace Library

Several short scenes in Dancing King are set in what’s called the Buckingham Palace Library. Michael Kent-Hughes meets here with Josh Gittings , the man who becomes his chief of staff, the Monday after the family’s arrival in London. He tells Gittings that the volumes in the room are dusty, and he wished he had an inventory of what was in the room. Michael conducts interviews here, most notably the one with Geoffrey Venneman, one of the chief villains of the novel. Michael is using the library as a quasi-office until his own office is remodeled.

I should mention here that there is no official “royal library” in Buckingham Palace. I invented the room for the novel. 

At the rear of the ground level of the palace, there is the Bow Room, a large room that arcs on the terrace side. On the official tour, you walk through this room to exit to turn in your tour head sets and find the refreshment tent. The Bow Room is officially a kind of waiting room for guests, until they’re conducted to meet with the monarch. There are rooms on either side of the Bow Room, which were originally designed to be the library. From early on, though, Victoria and Albert, the first to occupy the palace, used the two rooms and the Bow Room for other purposes.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest. 

Illustration: The Octagonal Library at Buckingham House. Buckingham House was incorporated into Buckingham Palace but the library building was not. 

Dancing King Stories: The Green Drawing Room

Before there was a Buckingham Palace, there was a Buckingham House, built by the Duke of Buckingham in the early 18^th century. George III bought it in 1761 as a residence for his wife, Queen Charlotte, and it became known as the Queen’s House. The royal family spent considerable and increasing time there, and it came to be known as the family’s London residence. The Green Drawing Room, known by that name today (or simply the “Green Room”), was originally the Duchess of Buckingham’s saloon, and was the largest room on the first floor (what Americans call the second floor) of the house. 

Over the centuries, the room has been remade a number of times. For Queen Charlotte, large wall drawings were brought from Hampton Court Palace and the ceiling was painted. Later, the drawings were replaced, and the ceiling plastered. Doorways have been added and chimney mantles replaced. In the 1830s, green silk was used to decorate the walls.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Photograph: Looking through the Green Drawing Room to the Throne Room at Buckingham Palace.

Dancing King Stories: Buckingham Palace

It’s likely the most recognizable royal residence in the world.

The site of Buckingham Palace in London has been a royal residence since 1761, when George III bought Buckingham House for his wife, Queen Caroline. It was architect John Nash who transformed the building into more of what we know today, creating a three-winged building with the Marble Arch in front of it (the arch was later moved to Hyde Park). Victoria was the first monarch to live in the palace, moving in in 1837, and it was during her early reign that a fourth wing was added, especially to provide more bedrooms and a nursery. The fourth wing created the quadrangle design. 

The palace has experienced some significant changes over the years. In 1911, the forecourt was added (where the changing of the Guard takes place) as part of the plan for the Victoria Memorial statue. The gates and railings were also added at this time. In 1913, the palace was refaced – the stone was deteriorating because of air pollution. During World War II, a German plane flew right up The Mall and bombed part of the palace – in the area where the Queen’s Art Gallery and the palace gift shop are today on Buckingham Gate.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest. 

Photograph: Buckingham Palace, September 2017.