The Queen will light the principal Platinum Jubilee beacon from her home at Windsor Castle on Thursday evening, and she’s asked her grandson to attend the beacon lighting at Buckingham Palace on her behalf.
Buckingham Palace released new details of the Platinum Jubilee beacons on Wednesday, announcing that The Queen and Prince William will participate in a dual beacon-lighting ceremony from Windsor and London.
The Platinum Jubilee’s principal beacon is the ‘Tree of Trees’ sculpture, a lighting installation that is inspired by The Queen’s Green Canopy and reflects “the Royal Family’s long history of championing environmental causes,” according to the palace. At Buckingham Palace, projections of archival photographs will appear on the façade.
The Queen will begin the beacon-lighting ceremony at the Quadrangle at Windsor Castle, arriving by a fanfare trumpet and meeting Bruno Peek, the man who has organised the Platinum Jubilee Beacons Project.
Meanwhile, at Buckingham Palace, William will meet with the head of The Queen’s Green Canopy and the ‘Tree of Trees’ designer in the presence of young people from the Scouts, Girlguiding, the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust, and the students of The Queen’s Green Canopy Junior Forester Award.
According to the palace, The Queen will watch as the Commonwealth Globe of Nations is placed on a podium and will touch it, signalling that the ‘Tree of Trees’ at Buckingham Palace should be lit. William will watch as the ‘Tree of Trees’ lights up, having followed a chain of lights that travels through Windsor Castle, up the Round Tower, before beginning to light up at Buckingham Palace.
At Buckingham Palace, the London Community Gospel Choir and Gregory Porter will perform ‘A Life Lived with Grace’, the official Beacons Project song written especially for the Platinum Jubilee.
There are three types of beacons being lit for the Platinum Jubilee: the principal beacon; community beacons that will be lit all over the UK and territories; and Commonwealth beacons, which will be lit in the capitals of Commonwealth countries all over the world.
