London, England
The office and London house of the British monarch: 775 rooms behind a pale stone front put up in thirteen weeks in 1913. Most people see only the railings, the guards in red and a balcony. For ten weeks each summer the doors open and you may walk through the rooms where the state receives its guests.
Photo: SAC Matthew 'Gerry' Gerrard RAF/© MoD Crown Copyright 2016, OGL v1.0, Wikimedia Commons
You are walking down a wide straight road surfaced in dull red, with plane trees and flagpoles on both sides. At the end is a white marble monument with a gold figure on top, and behind it a long flat building of pale grey stone, three storeys high, with black and gold railings in front. A flag is flying from the roof.
A queen first came to live here in 1837. She was Victoria, and she was eighteen. In China it was the seventeenth year of the Daoguang emperor, shortly before the first Opium War.
The outside, the memorial and the guard are free on any day. The rooms need a ticket and are open only at certain times of year.
| Part | Ticket |
|---|---|
| The front, the gates and the balcony | Free, from the road |
| Changing the Guard | Free; on set mornings |
| The Victoria Memorial and the Mall | Free |
| The State Rooms | 33 pounds in advance (summer 2026) |
| The garden | Included, on the way out |
| The King's Gallery | Separate ticket, 22 pounds in 2026 |
| The Royal Mews | Separate ticket; closed in winter |
The palace began as a nobleman's house in the country outside London, built in 1703 for the Duke of Buckingham. King George III bought it in 1761 as a quiet home for his wife. His son George IV, who loved building, set out to turn it into a palace and spent far more than Parliament had allowed. He died before it was ready.
What you see from the road is not his palace. It is a wing added in 1847 across the open side of his courtyard, to give Queen Victoria more bedrooms for her growing family, and given a new face of pale stone in 1913. The old palace, in yellow stone, is behind it, looking over the garden.
The King works here and receives presidents and prime ministers here. He does not sleep here. Since 2017 the wiring and pipes of the whole building have been under replacement, room by room.
"The flag shows that the King is in." Only one flag does. The royal standard, in red, gold and blue quarters, flies when he is here. When he is away, the palace flies the ordinary Union flag.
"You can go in at any time." The State Rooms open to visitors for about ten weeks from July to September, and on a few days in winter by guided tour.
"The guard changes every day." It changes on set mornings, not all, and is cancelled in heavy rain.
"The guards are for show." They are serving infantry soldiers of the regular army, who are also sent on operations abroad.
"It has always been the royal palace." It has been the monarch's London home for less than two hundred years. The court is still officially at St James's Palace, a brick palace a few minutes' walk away.
The first four stops are outside and free. The last three follow the summer route through the rooms.
The road is nearly a kilometre long and was laid out in its present form in 1911 as a stage for processions. Its red surface is meant to look like a carpet. On Sundays it is closed to cars.
The gates carry the royal arms in gilded iron: a lion on the left, a unicorn on the right. The lion stands for England and the unicorn for Scotland.
The soldiers usually come from five regiments of foot guards. All wear red coats and tall black caps of bearskin, and you tell them apart by the buttons: singly for the first regiment, in pairs for the second, in threes, fours and fives for the others.
At the change, the old guard forms up in the forecourt. The new guard marches in with a band from its barracks close by. The officers touch hands to pass over the keys, and the sentries are replaced one by one. It takes about forty-five minutes, and the band plays whatever it likes: marches, film music, songs from the charts.
Find the middle window on the first floor, under the triangle of the roof, with a stone balcony draped in red on great days. The family comes out here after a coronation, a wedding or the King's official birthday in June, when the air force flies over the roof.
In September 1940 a German pilot flew straight up the Mall and dropped a string of bombs on the palace while the King and Queen were inside. The chapel was destroyed. The Queen said she was glad: now she could look the bombed poor of east London in the face.
The white marble pile in front of the gates was unveiled in 1911. Queen Victoria sits facing down the Mall, away from the palace. Above her is a winged figure of Victory in gilded bronze. Round the base are a mother and children, an angel of justice and an angel of truth.
Its steps are the best free place to watch the guard change. Be there forty minutes early.
Summer visitors enter at the side and come first to a staircase that divides and curves up under a glass dome, with a gilded bronze rail of leaves.
The Throne Room is red and gold, with two chairs under a canopy at the far end. The room is used for group photographs after royal weddings. The chairs were made for coronations in the abbey and brought here afterwards. No king has been crowned in this room.
A gallery forty-seven metres long, lit from the roof, runs down the middle of the palace. On its walls hang paintings bought by kings over four centuries: Rembrandt, Rubens, Vermeer, Canaletto. They are changed from year to year.
The Ballroom, added for Queen Victoria in 1855, is the largest room. State banquets are held here at a table in the shape of a horseshoe for about a hundred and seventy guests. Laying it takes about three days, and by custom the monarch looks it over before dinner.
In the White Drawing Room, look at the tall mirror and cabinet in the corner. The whole piece swings open. It is a door, and the family comes through it from their private rooms to meet their guests.
You leave by the back, and for the first time see the palace George IV built: a long front of honey-coloured stone with a curved bay in the middle.
The garden covers sixteen hectares, with a lake, a tennis court and more than three hundred kinds of wild flower. About three times each summer the King gives a party on the lawn for eight thousand people at a time, chosen for the work they have done. They drink about twenty-seven thousand cups of tea.
| Year | Here | Elsewhere |
|---|---|---|
| 1703 | A duke builds a country house here | Qing China, the Kangxi reign; Peter the Great founds St Petersburg |
| 1761 | George III buys it for the Queen | The Qianlong reign in China; three years before Mozart plays here |
| 1837 | Victoria moves in | The Daoguang reign in China; the telegraph is patented in the same year |
| 1851 | The first appearance on the balcony | The Taiping rebellion begins in China; the Great Exhibition is held in London |
| 1913 | The front is refaced in thirteen weeks | The second year of the Republic of China; a year before the First World War |
| 1940 | Bombed with the King and Queen inside | The Second World War; the Battle of Britain is at its height |
| 1993 | The State Rooms are opened to paying visitors | The money goes to repair Windsor Castle after its fire |
| 2015 | The president of China stays here on a state visit | The year Elizabeth II becomes the longest-reigning British monarch |
Films from official channels, played from YouTube. Nothing is loaded until you press play.
These are stories people tell about this place. They are legends, not history, and each one says where it comes from.
In the first years of Queen Victoria a boy of fourteen got into the palace three times. He slept under a sofa, sat on the throne, stole the Queen's underclothes and listened to her talking to her husband. He was caught each time, and at last was sent to sea.
Source: The case of Edward Jones, reported in the London newspapers, 1838–1841; the details grew in the telling
On Christmas Day a monk in chains walks the back terrace. He died in a punishment cell of the priory that stood on this ground before the house.
Source: London ghost lore, in print since the nineteenth century
King James I planted four acres of mulberry trees on this spot to start an English silk industry. He planted the wrong kind, which silkworms will not eat, and the garden became a place for drinking. One of his trees is said to be alive in the palace garden still.
Source: The planting of 1609 is recorded; the surviving tree is palace tradition
Later, people who live here will be able to add the stories they grew up with, and say which of these they have heard.
Last checked 2026-11-12. The Royal Collection Trust's own site (rct.uk), dates and prices of the summer opening of 2026 as shown there.
Checked 2026-11-12
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