Of the memorials in Kensington Gardens, many share a close connection with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, the most important to the latter being the ornate Gothic masterpiece designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, known as the Albert Memorial, which was unveiled in 1872 and restored in recent memory. The statue to the great doctor Edward Jenner (1749-1823) was revealed by Prince Albert and has…
The site of Christchurch Greyfriars, is a strange, haunting place, redolent of history. It is now a ruined, public garden and a popular place for Londoners to take their sandwiches for lunch. Long gone is the atmosphere of bells and prayer from the Middle Ages; although in…
Of the nine children of Queen Victoria’s children, one daughter married in London another on the Isle of Wight and one son in St. Petersburg. The remaining six married at Windsor, five at St. George’s Chapel and one in the Private Chapel at Windsor Castle.
The…
Did Queen Victoria and Prince Albert really introduce the Christmas tree to Britain?
23rd December 2023
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 Christmas time, decorated with lights and sweets, is believed to date back to the 16th century. As a child, Charlotte’s family…
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…
While modern royal Christmas celebrations take place at Sandringham, for hundreds of years it was Windsor Castle that was the preferred setting for the festive celebrations of kings and queens.
Victoria and Albert loved to spend the season there but they were only…
Queen Victoria and an empress who set up home for winter in a famous London hotel
16th December 2023
Sometimes known as ‘the annexe to Buckingham Palace’, the classic hotel in London’s Mayfair has time-honoured connections with royalty that exist into the present day. From the earlier single building run by William and Marianne Claridge at 51 Brook Street, Claridge’s opened in its own right in 1856 and received its first visit from Queen Victoria in 1860. Historically, it continued to…
The historic queen who was always treated to handmade Christmas cards from her children
15th December 2023
Some of the earliest Christmas cards to survive in the Royal Collection date from the first half of Queen Victoria’s reign. These were handmade by Queen Victoria’s children and are typical of the sentimental nineteenth century; although in the case of the Queen’s…
It was during the reign of Queen Victoria that many interpretations of modern Christmas traditions took hold. The Royal Family was at the heart of some of them with Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, seen to popularise the Christmas tree. Prince Albert was an…
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…
