Buckingham Palace History of the house and who has lived there Buckingham Palace has served as the official London residence of the UK’s sovereigns since 1837 and today is the administrative headquarters of the Monarch and in use for the many official events and receptions held by The Queen. The Palace has 775 rooms. These include 19 State rooms, 52 Royal and guest bedrooms, 188 staff bedrooms, 92 offices and 78 bathrooms. Buckingham Palace (then Buckingham House) once stood on the edge of the City of Westminster, at the western end of the Tudor hunting park of St James's in the early 1600s. However it wasn't until 1837 that Buckingham Palace became the official seat of the court. Buckingham House The history of the site where Buckingham Palace stands can be traced back to the reign of James I in the early 17th century. He started a plantation of mulberries for the rearing of silkworms where the Palace Gardens are now located. Charles I then gave the garden to Lord Aston in 1628 and it is clear from records that a large house already existed on the site at this time. The house had many owners and tenants until, in 1698, it was let to the man who gave the house its name – John Sheffield, later the Duke of Buckingham. The Duke found the house old-fashioned, so it was demolished to create the new ‘Buckingham House’, which stood where Buckingham Palace is today. It was designed and built with the assistance of William Talman, Comptroller of the Works to William III, and Captain William Winde, a retired soldier. John Fitch built the main structure by contract for £7,000. ‘The Queen’s House’ Buckingham House remained the property of the Dukes of Buckingham until 1762, when King George III acquired the whole site as a private and comfortable family home for his wife, Queen Charlotte, and their children. It was known as ‘The Queen’s House’ and 14 of their 15 children were born there. St James' Palace, which was close by, remained the official seat of the court and where many court functions were held. Sir William Chambers was put in charge of remodelling and modernising the house between 1762 and 1776, at a cost of £73,000. With ceilings designed by Robert Adam and painted by Giovanni Battista Cipriani, The Queen’s rooms on the principal floor were among the most sophisticated of their time. 1 King George IV When George III’s son, George IV acceded to the throne in 1820, he decided to reconstruct the house into a pied-à-terre, using it for the same purpose as his father George III. As work progressed, and as late as the end of 1826, the King had a change of heart and he set about transforming the house into a palace with the assistance of his architect, John Nash. Parliament agreed to a budget of £150,000, but the King pressed for £450,000 as a more realistic figure. Nash retained the main block but doubled its size by adding a new suite of rooms on the garden side facing west. Faced with mellow Bath stone, the external style reflected the French neo-classical influence favoured by George IV. The remodelled rooms are the State and semi-State Rooms, which remain virtually unchanged since Nash's time. The north and south wings of Buckingham House were demolished and rebuilt on a larger scale with a triumphal ‘Marble Arch’ as the centrepiece of an enlarged courtyard to commemorate the British victories at Trafalgar and Waterloo. Buckingham Palace in 1846, showing the Marble Arch in the centre of the Forecourt Nash's Buckingham Palace was widely regarded as a masterpiece but it came at a considerable cost. By 1828 Nash had spent £496,169 on the changes to the building, far above budget. Soon after the death of George IV, the Prime Minister dismissed Nash from his post for over-spending. Lord Duncannon, First Commissioner of Works, took over the project to finish the Palace. Duncannon appointed a new architect, Edward Blore, who extended the east façade at both ends and created a new southern side entrance. The furnishing stage had not been reached at Buckingham Palace during George IV’s lifetime. His successor in 1830, his brother William IV, showed no interest in moving from his home at Clarence House, and, when the old Houses of Parliament were destroyed by fire, he offered the still-incomplete Buckingham Palace as a replacement. The offer was respectfully declined, and Parliament voted to allow the ‘completing and perfecting’ of the Palace for royal use. Under Duncannon and Blore’s supervision, the State Rooms were completed between 1833-34. They were furnished with some of the finest objects from Carlton House, George IV’s London home when Prince of Wales, which had been demolished in 1827. 2 Queen Victoria and Prince Albert Queen Victoria was the first sovereign to take up residence and rule from Buckingham Palace in 1837 and in 1838 she was the first British Sovereign to leave from Buckingham Palace for a Coronation. The Queen’s marriage to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1840 set the seal on the use of Buckingham Palace as a royal family home and as a place of entertainment and official business. Her marriage soon showed up the Palace's shortcomings. A serious problem for the newly married couple was the absence of any nurseries and too few bedrooms for visitors. In February 1845, eight years after ascending the throne, Queen Victoria complained to the Prime Minister, Robert Peel, about the lack of space in Buckingham Palace for accommodation and entertaining. The only solution was to move the Marble Arch and build a fourth wing, thereby creating a quadrangle. Edward Blore was instructed to prepare plans for a new wing, enclosing Nash’s forecourt on its eastern side. By far the most significant element of Blore’s design was the central balcony on the new main façade, which was incorporated at Prince Albert’s suggestion. From here Queen Victoria saw her troops depart to the Crimean War and welcomed them on their return. Queen Victoria on the balcony to welcome soldiers returning from the Crimean War The cost of the new wing was largely covered by the sale of George IV's Royal Pavilion at Brighton (£53,000). Blore added an attic floor to the main block of the Palace and decorated it externally with marble friezes originally intended for Nash's Marble Arch. The work was completed in 1847. In 1855 the architect James Pennethorne completed the Ball and Concert Room and the Ball Supper Room, linked by galleries to Nash’s State Apartments at their southern end. As part of the overall redevelopment, the triumphal arch, now known as Marble Arch, was moved to the north-east corner of Hyde Park where it can be seen today. The Renaissance-style interiors of the new rooms placed Buckingham Palace in the avant-garde of decoration in England, leading the critic of The Builder to designate the Palace as the ‘Headquarters of Taste’. Over a period of 20 years, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert transformed the Palace into the centre of an energetic, cosmopolitan court. Apart from State concerts, entertainment at the Palace came to an abrupt end after Prince Albert’s untimely death in 1861. Queen Victoria was absent from Buckingham Palace for long periods of time after her husband’s death, and by the end of her reign in 1901, the Palace had begun to look neglected and the soft French stone on the East Front was showing signs of deterioration. 3 King Edward VII King Edward VII and his consort Queen Alexandra were determined to revive the high standards of royal entertaining during his short reign from 1901-1910. The King would preside at Evening Courts seated on the throne, and a new dais and canopy were set up in the Ballroom for this purpose and throughout his reign, the Palace was the focus of fashionable social life in London. King Edward VII redecorated the interior of the Palace during his reign and the new white and gold decorative scheme can today be seen in a number of the State Rooms, including the Ballroom. King George V Queen Mary, wife of King George V, had a strong knowledge of furniture and decoration and, advised by curators from the Victoria and Albert Museum, restored Regency character to the rooms after Edwardian alterations made during the reign of King Edward VII. In 1935, a year before the end of George V’s reign, the Palace was the focus of national celebrations for the King's Silver Jubilee. During the reign of King George V, the present forecourt of the Palace, where Changing the Guard takes place, was formed in 1911, as part of the Victoria Memorial scheme. The gates and railings were also completed in 1911; the North-Centre Gate is now the everyday entrance to the Palace, whilst the Central Gate is used for State occasions and the departure of the guard after Changing the Guard. The work was completed just before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. The decision was also taken to reface the front of Buckingham Palace. Sir Aston Webb, with a number of large public buildings to his credit, was commissioned to create a new design. Webb chose the harder- wearing Portland Stone which took 12 months to prepare before building work could begin. When work did start it took 13 weeks to complete the refacing, a process that included removing the old stonework.