History

Queen Victoria's 'covered' walkway at Windsor

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29th June 2019
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…
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History

Queen Victoria's engagement to Prince Albert

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28th June 2019
One room at Windsor Castle is perhaps more associated with Queen Victoria’s marriage to Prince Albert than any other. This is what was called the Blue Closet, part of the private apartments. By a curious coincidence, Prince Albert would later die in another room of the…
History

The last will of Queen Victoria

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28th June 2019
On 25 October 1897, Queen Victoria drafted her last will, the manuscript of which is preserved at Windsor. Typically for the Queen, such a document existed outside of her journal and in her entry for that day – written up at Balmoral – there is no mention of her making…
HistoryRoyal Weddings

Queen Victoria's wedding ring

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28th June 2019
The wedding ring of Queen Victoria has its special poignancy, a symbol of the passionate marriage she enjoyed with Prince Albert. Placed on her finger on the morning of 10 February 1840, her private instructions ensured that she would wear it in perpetuity. What do we know of it? If we study the paintings and engravings made that show the hands of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert joined, we might…
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HistoryRoyal Weddings

Queen Victoria's wedding veil

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25th June 2019
Queen Victoria’s wedding veil was an object of singular poignancy because of the enormous sentimental value that it represented to her in personal terms and the context in which she last wore it. She wore in on the monumental day – 10 February 1840 – the day she…
History

Battenberg-on-Thames: Walton and Imperial Russia

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24th June 2019
In the summer of 1894, Tsarevich Nicholas of Russia came to stay at Walton-on-Thames, in the house which his fiancée, Princess Alix of Hesse’s eldest sister, Victoria, Princess Louis of Battenberg and her husband, Prince Louis of Battenberg had rented. They would stay in the house for several days before continuing to Windsor Castle, where the Tsarevich came as a guest of his fiancée’s…
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History

Queen Victoria's memorials to her dogs

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17th June 2019
Queen Victoria’s love for her dogs was lavishly recorded in paint and sculpture and not least, in her sketches and words. Lord Melbourne, the Queen’s Prime Minister, once commented dryly: ‘You’ll be smothered with dogs‘. The Queen’s characteristic need to memorialise her friends and servants could also be why she wanted to create memorials to her dogs, for all these…
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