Buckingham Palace
The graceless
colossus of Buckingham Palace, popularly
known as "Buck House", has served as the monarch's
permanent London residence only since the accession
of Victoria.
Buckingham Palace Bought by George III in 1762, the Buckingham Palace building was
overhauled by Nash in the late 1820s,
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and again by Aston Webb in time for George
V's coronation in 1913, producing a palace that's about
as bland as it's possible to be.
For two months of the year, the hallowed portals are grudgingly
nudged open; timed tickets are sold from the marquee like
box office in Green Park at the western end of
The Mall.
The interior, however, is a bit of an anticlimax: of the
palace's 660 rooms you're permitted to see around twenty,
and there's little sign of life, as the Queen decamps
to Scotland every summer.
For the other ten months of the year there's little to do here, as the Buckingham Palace
is closed to
visitors not that this deters the crowds who mill around the
railings, and gather in some force to watch the Changing
of the Guard, 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).
From spring 2002, the public also are able to view the best
of the Royal Collection at the rebuilt, greatly expanded
Queen's Gallery, on the south side of the palace. Among
the highlights are works by Michelangelo, Reynolds,
Gainsborough, Vermeer, Van Dyck, Rubens,
Rembrandt and Canaletto, as well as the odd
Fabergé egg and heaps of Sèvres china.
There's more pageantry on show at the Nash
built Royal Mews, further along Buckingham Palace
Road. The royal carriages, lined
up under a glass canopy in the courtyard, are the main attraction,
in particular the Gold Carriage, made for George III in
1762, smothered in 22 carat gilding and weighing four tons,
its axles supporting four life size figures.
Extract from The Rough Guide To London. Written by
Rob Humphreys, London: Rough Guides Ltd, 2000.
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