A fourteenth-century Anglican church in the Somerset parish of Burnham-on-Sea and Highbridge is not perhaps the place where you might expect to find several remnants from the lost Palace of Whitehall, the main London residence of England’s monarchs until 1698. A second fire destroyed most of Whitehall, with the exception of Inigo Jones’s magnificent neo-classical Palladian-style Banqueting…
Queen Victoria’s winter sledge became synonymous with the Windsor Christmas, at least during the lifetime of Prince Albert, who is rightly credited with popularising Christmas traditions in England, including that of the Christmas tree. The royal trees were decorated with…
The royal who really brought the Christmas tree to Britain
6th December 2022
Prince Albert is generally credited with introducing the Christmas tree to Britain, but in fact, it was the work of his wife’s grandmother, Queen Charlotte. Like Prince Albert, Charlotte was born and raised in Germany, where the tradition of bringing a tree inside at…
Queen Victoria spent her last Christmas at Osborne in 1900. It was forty years exactly since Prince Albert had celebrated his final Christmas in 1860 at Windsor, the setting for so many happy family festivities in the past. Prince Albert did not live to see Christmas 1861, dying on 14 December in the same room in which with strange historical prescience, George IV and William IV had also died, in…
Snow has provided enjoyment for countless generations of children and adults alike; royalty, of course,is no exception to this time-honoured rule. English monarchs have wintered at Windsor since the twelfth century.
Windsor Castle was the preferred royal
residence…
After the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten at 11:30 am in Westminster Abbey on 20 November 1947, the bridal gifts given to Princess Elizabeth were exhibited at St James’s Palace, numbering over 2,500. Like the gifts, Princess Elizabeth’s…
A moment of history - the wedding of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip
20th November 2022
On the morning of Thursday, 20 November 1947, thousands lined the streets of London along the processional route between Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey; crowds thronged down the Mall, pressing against the Palace gates. Millions listened to the radio broadcast that was made. Post-war Britain took an enormous interest in the royal wedding and many thousands watched the film of the event…
The Archduchess Sophie Friederike was born on 5 March 1855 as the first child of the Emperor Franz Joseph I and Empress Elisabeth, the year after their wedding. Three more children would follow with the births of the Archduchess Gisela, Crown Prince Rudolf and the…
How Queen Charlotte and Queen Victoria & Albert introduced the Christmas Tree to Britain
9th December 2021
Prince Albert is generally credited with introducing the Christmas tree to Britain, but in fact, it was the work of his wife’s grandmother, Queen Charlotte. Like Prince Albert, Charlotte was born and raised in Germany, where the tradition of bringing a tree inside at…
On 21 April 1926, Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary was born in London, at the Mayfair home of her maternal grandparents, the Earl and Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne. The former house in which she was born was at No. 17 Bruton Street and although the house no longer exists, the site is of great historical interest and a focus on this building is all the more timely, as we remember the birth…
