The gates are 35 metres wide and 15 metres high and they open exactly at 10.45am. The guards march in step, the bearskin hats tilted slightly to the right, the red tunics pressed and precise. The Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace has happened nearly every day since 1660 and it draws 4,000 spectators in summer. But the palace behind the gates is a working royal residence, 775 rooms spread across four floors, and only the State Rooms are open to the public. Here is what the building actually contains.
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In This Article
The State Rooms: 19 Rooms of Diplomacy
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Buckingham Palace was originally a townhouse built for the Duke of Buckingham in 1703. George III bought it in 1761 for 21,000 pounds as a private residence for Queen Charlotte. John Nash, the architect who transformed it into a palace between 1820 and 1830, designed the Marble Hall, the Grand Staircase, and the State Rooms. The 19 State Rooms open to visitors every summer for ten weeks, from July to September, when the King is at Balmoral. The Throne Room, the Ballroom (36 metres long, the largest room in the palace), and the Picture Gallery, which holds works by Rembrandt, Rubens, and Vermeer, are the highlights. The ticket price is 30 pounds for adults. The rooms are dressed with chandeliers of 30,000 crystal pieces each.
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The Palace Gardens: 39 Acres in Central London
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The gardens behind the palace cover 39 acres, making them the largest private garden in London. The lake, the Rose Garden, the helicopter landing pad. The garden was used for the Queen’s annual garden parties, which host 30,000 guests each summer across three events. The Mulberry Tree, planted in 1608, is the oldest tree in the garden. The garden also contains a tennis court, a formal herbaceous border, and the summerhouse where the royal family watches the flypast on Trooping the Colour. The garden is not normally open to visitors, but the Summer Opening of the State Rooms includes a garden access supplement in the ticket price.
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The Royal Mews and the Queen’s Gallery
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The Royal Mews, on the southern edge of the palace grounds, houses the royal fleet of vehicles. The Gold State Coach, built in 1762 for George III, weighs four tonnes and requires eight horses to pull it. It has been used for every coronation since 1821. The Diamond Jubilee State Coach, built in 2014, has wood from HMS Victory and Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace built into its structure. The Queen’s Gallery, on the western side, exhibits items from the Royal Collection, one of the world’s largest art collections with over 7,000 paintings, 40,000 watercolours, and 3,000 drawings. The current exhibition schedule is listed on the official website.
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What would you most want to see inside Buckingham Palace if you had access to any room for one hour?
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Looking for more British travel inspiration? Check out our other guides to the United Kingdom and start planning your next European adventure!
You might not be able to get to meet the Queen, but it’s possible to see where she lives. Yes, Buckingham Palace is one of the most prestigious and interesting sights of London.
\\nThe state rooms at the palace, used for entertaining on official and state occasions, are open for most of August and September each year – though unlike London Hotels you can’t stay there overnight!
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Don’t go expecting to be able to take home one of the Queen’s pillows as a keepsake either, as the private quarters of the royal family are out of bounds to visitors, but many thousands of people each year make a trip to London just to get the chance to enter Buckingham Palace.
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In a city where many of the buildings are centuries old, it may surprise some people that the palace itself only dates back to 1705, though that is considerably longer than the Dubai hotels that seek to replicate the Palace’s grandeur. King George III acquired it later in the 18th century for his wife, Queen Charlotte, but it was not an official royal palace until Queen Victoria took the throne in 1837.
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Over the years, the building has been extended. Though the core of the building remains largely unchanged, it was enlarged by architects Edward Blore and John Nash by the addition of three wings around a central courtyard.
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If there’s one feature of Buckingham Palace known better than any other, it is the balcony on which members of the Royal Family gather to greet crowds. Many millions of TV viewers around the world will remember the balcony as the scene for famous kisses following royal weddings – that of Prince Charles and the Princess of Wales in 1981 and Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge in April 2011.
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One of the most used rooms in Buckingham Palace is the Ballroom, built in 1854. It is the largest room in the building, and one used for investitures, including the conferring of knighthoods, as well as state banquets.
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For those lucky enough to receive an invitation, one of the greatest sights in London happens every November when the Queen entertains members of the foreign diplomatic corps, who get to dine off gold plate.
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