The wedding cakes in Queen Victoria’s family were magnificent examples of edible ceremony. Once they reached the age of photography, they were faithfully recorded for posterity. These images still have the power to enchant today, even in long ago albums. Just looking at these gorgeous cakes allows us to almost taste them by sight across the centuries. They were luscious creations. Rich in royal…
A charming photograph taken by Mary Steen in the Queen’s Sitting Room at Windsor on 21 May 1895 shows an elderly Queen Victoria knitting or crocheting, sat with her youngest daughter, Beatrice, Princess Henry of Battenberg, who dutifully reads the newspaper aloud to her…
Queen Victoria had twelve bridesmaids. What do we know about them? What did they wear? Certainly the Queen – as might be expected – had a greater number of bridesmaids than her daughters would at their weddings, eight being a recurring choice. We can see them clustered…
In the Queen’s bedroom at Osborne House, may be found a quite extraordinary chintz pattern. Used for the bed hangings of the Queen’s bed, as well as the sofa and curtains, the material has been adopted in a modern context for the room, having originally been for the Royal Yacht Victoria and Albert. The Queen and the Royal Family would often cross the Solent to Osborne in either the yacht…
Of Queen Victoria’s nine children, one alone was born at Windsor Castle. This royal child was also christened there. This was the second son of the Queen and Prince Albert, baptised in the Private Chapel at Windsor Castle on 6 September 1844. This child would be Prince…
On the eve of her wedding to Prince Albert, Queen Victoria received a sapphire diamond-bordered brooch. It was an item of personal jewellery to which she would attach intense sentimental importance. It became in a way, a symbol of her marriage to Prince Albert and she valued…
In the summer of 1894, the Tsarevich Nicholas came to England as a guest of Queen Victoria, first staying for a brief few days with his fiancée, Princess Alix of Hesse, at Walton-on-Thames before continuing to Windsor Castle. This was a blissful period for a young couple who were deeply in love, having become engaged at Coburg on 8 April 1894. During his stay at Windsor, the Tsarevich paid a…
Northampton Museums own a pair of flat shoes, believed to be those worn by Queen Victoria on her wedding day, 10 February 1840. Of white satin, they certainly would have complimented the Queen’s own simple wedding dress of finely woven Spitalfields silk satin in her own…
When Tsarevich Nicholas visited Windsor as a guest of Queen Victoria in the summer of 1894, he spent a brief time with his fiancée, Princess Alix of Hesse, at Marlborough House, the London residence of the Prince and Princess of Wales on the Mall. As Nicholas wrote with…
Descending the hill at Windsor Castle down towards St George’s Chapel, today’s visitor passes the Deanery at St George’s. The upper level of this building, however, has a hidden secret within its sacred architecture. Over the leads of the Deanery was a constructed covered walkway, used by Queen Victoria to enable her to have private access to the Queen’s Closet or Royal Closet, sometimes…
