Inside Kensington Palace: Fascinating Details About The Royal Residence

After tying the knot with the future King Charles III, Princess Diana packed her bags to go and live in Kensington Palace. The couple took over Apartments 8 and 9, two conjoined chambers set out over three floors. There was an office for Diana, a living room with a TV, and a more formal dining area, plus a nursery on the top floor where she looked after Prince William and Harry. But this part of Kensington Palace is also famous for being the setting for Diana’s highly controversial TV interview with Martin Bashir in November 1995. Diana also continued to live at Kensington even after her divorce from Charles.

Kensington Palace, which has been a royal residency since way back in the 17th century, boasts some impressive grounds. And throughout history, the gardens have been home to many animals: deer, horses, elk, you name it. But in 1725 a rather unexpected creature joined the fray: a tiger. The big cat, which was a gift to the King, didn’t have free rein of the grounds. Instead, an “iron den” was built for it to call home. Some 12 months later, a couple more tigers were brought in, too. To show how diverse the gardens were, a snailery was also installed during this period. 

How’s this for an awesome wedding gift? To celebrate William’s marriage to Catherine, Princess of Wales, Queen Elizabeth II handed them the keys to Apartment 1A at Kensington Palace. Incredibly, this living space houses a whopping 21 rooms! And the pair made good use of them once they settled in in 2012. Much like Diana did, William and Kate raised their three kids there, while also hosting the likes of Michelle and Barack Obama. They eventually moved out in 2022.

You might find this hard to believe, but Kensington Palace hasn’t always been a royal residence. It actually started out as a modestly sized villa by the name of Nottingham House. That all changed in 1689, though. Eyeing up a new country home, King William III and Queen Mary II purchased the estate and slowly transformed it into a place fit for royalty. The rest is history!

While the residents of Kensington Palace can wear what they want today, that wasn’t the case back in the 1700s. During that spell, a dress code was in place: it was pretty unforgiving. Women were expected to sport tight-yet-broad dresses, place bird feathers inside their hair, wear white face paint, and hold a hand fan. As for the guys, they needed to don decorated suits, hairpieces, sparkly shoes, and stockings.

There are plenty of eye-catching features across the Kensington Palace estate, but few can touch the Orangery. This building has been in place since 1705, after Queen Anne ordered the creation of a luxurious greenhouse. She adored the results, prompting her to use it as a base for any summer get-togethers at the palace. Today, folks can visit the Orangery and enjoy a bite to eat in style.

Kensington Palace is arguably one of the most beautiful royal estates in the world right now. Yet it wasn’t always a beloved spot. Back in the 19th century, Queen Caroline of Brunswick was living at the property by herself: it’s fair to say she didn’t like it. Before moving out, she penned a note that read, “I must and will leave [this] royal hospital for the decayed and poor royalties, and live in some more cheerful situation.” Ouch!

While Kensington Palace has been home to many royals throughout the centuries, few endured a more heartbreaking life than Anne. The monarch — who was crowned in 1702 — went through 17 pregnancies as an adult, but nearly all of them resulted in miscarriage. Sadly, the one son who did survive passed away when he was only 11. Due to that, Anne rarely enjoyed the best of health, and died at 49 in 1714.

After William and Mary bought the estate, the initial work on Kensington Palace was almost done in 1691. But then, disaster struck. In the book Kensington Palace: Art, Architecture and Society, Lee Prosser wrote, “On November 10, 1691, the King and Queen awoke to a noise that sounded like the firing of muskets. The Gentleman of the Bedchamber came in to inform the King that a fire had broken out near the Stone Gallery.” Fortunately, the inferno was put out before it could destroy the place.

If you were a famous face in the 1960s, then Kensington Palace was the place to be. You see, Princess Margaret hosted a number of eye-catching parties on the property, inviting a veritable Who’s Who of recognizable names. We’re talking about the likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Britt Eckland, and Peter Sellers. Even The Beatles showed up for these get-togethers! Oh, to have been a fly on the wall!

Following the passing of Queen Anne, King George I was crowned in 1714 and took over Kensington Palace. He described the residence as “very agreeable.” Still, George saw room for improvement, so he recruited an architect, William Kent, to spruce it up. Kent wasted no time getting to work, beefing up the property and decorating the interiors with incredible paintings and beautiful furnishings.

You’d think the Christening of the future Queen Victoria would have been a notable event back then. But it really wasn’t! Her dad, the Prince Regent, only announced it some three days before it happened, opting for a quiet ceremony inside Kensington Palace. His baby daughter was subsequently christened in the Cupola Room. It was an understated affair, to say the least.

To mark Kensington Palace’s first Christmas in 1689 Mary and William went all-out with their dinner menu. The feast included beef sirloin, chicken, turkey, plum broth, veal, mutton, and a “calf’s head hashed.” There were also mince pies and tarts on the side, too. Our standard festive lunches feel pretty spartan by comparison!

Before Mary got comfortable at Kensington Palace, paintings were rarely hung up around a royal residence, let alone in a bathroom. Yet she had other ideas. The monarch decided to decorate her new toilet with portraits of William and herself. “[It] was an extremely intimate or quite possibly self-deprecating use of her own portraiture,” Sebastian Edwards noted in Kensington Palace: Art, Architecture and Society.

Around two centuries before Margaret’s famous parties, King George II and Queen Caroline I weren’t shy in putting together fabulous events at Kensington Palace themselves. They loved a good party, but it didn’t stop there. Caroline also organized “intellectual salons” as well. These thought-provoking meetings included some of the smartest people from both the world of science and art at the time.

Before marrying Elizabeth, Prince Philip was staying at Kensington Palace with his grandma, the Dowager Marchioness. David Mountbatten, his cousin, was there, too. And as valet John Dean noted, “[She] was a real Victorian aristocrat, for whom Prince Philip and [David] retained a very wholesome respect. To avoid waking her they behaved like schoolboys, especially late at night when they’d clamber over the roof and through their windows for fear of waking her.”

Today, the King’s Gallery is a stand-out room inside Kensington Palace. During the 1860s, though, it served a very different purpose. At that stage, the Duke and Duchess of Teck were staying on the estate with their kids, who required a nursery. So, one was set up in the aforementioned space, which included an Homeric Odyssey mural on the ceiling. A worker recalled, “It was quaint and pretty to see the little ones in their cots with allegorical figures hovering above them.”

Off the back of William and Mary’s revamp of the place, every subsequent monarch spent time at Kensington Palace. But King George III bucked that trend. Following the passing of his grandpa, George II, he refused to move to the estate. Quite simply, he didn’t like it! So, for close to seven decades, the royal property didn’t house a reigning sovereign.

While George III turned his nose up at Kensington Palace, the same couldn’t be said for Rachel Lloyd. She was hired as the property’s housekeeper some four years after George II’s passing in 1764 and revitalized it. Yep, Lloyd spruced up the place, before arranging some huge get-togethers in the 1790s. We’re talking 300 guests! Thanks to her, Kensington survived its monarch-less years.

When she was 18, Princess Victoria was awoken with some devastating news at Kensington Palace on June 20, 1837. Her dad had passed away, and she was now Queen. Victoria didn’t waste any time in getting to work: she organized a meeting of the Privy Council — essentially, a group of advisors for the monarch — later that day, hosted in the estate’s Red Saloon.

Before the Museum of London made its home at London Wall in 1975 it got its start somewhere else. Yep, Kensington Palace opened its doors to the London Museum, as it was known then, back in 1911. As Kensington Palace: Art, Architecture and Society recalled, “[It was] an instant hit. There were at least 13,000 visitors on the first day alone.” Thanks to that spell, interest in the museum only grew. And with a new site set to open in 2026 it hasn’t waned!

When Victoria said goodbye to Kensington Palace, it soon became something of a royal “dormitory.” It was much more relaxed than previous years, with the monarch’s uncle and two of her daughters, Princess Louise and Princess Beatrice, moving in. But that’s not to say nothing happened. Louise drew up the plans for the gorgeous Victoria statue that’s still outside today during that period.

Given the size of the place, and all the intricate furnishings inside, cleaning Kensington Palace was quite a challenge in the past. Yet the staff didn’t do it alone. They were able to call upon the help of the Tower of London’s Jewel House, with those workers focusing on the silver objects. It really was a mammoth mission, and with monarchs frequently staying there, half-measures were off the table!

Setting the tone for future members of the royal family, William and Mary threw some memorable parties after moving into Kensington Palace, too. One attendee later wrote, “Saturday night last was a great entertainment made for the Prince of Baden at Kensington, where [there] was dancing and gaming, and a great supper and a banquet of sweetmeats. There could not be less than 1,000 persons [who went].”

It’s hard to name another monarch whose ties to Kensington Palace ran deeper than Victoria. On top of becoming the sovereign at the estate, she also met the love of her life there. Yes, Victoria was introduced to Prince Albert at Kensington. The lovebirds eventually tied the knot and welcomed a grand total of nine kids into the world, prior to Albert’s sad passing at just 42 years of age.

Compared to other parts of the Kensington Palace estate, Nottingham Cottage is fairly low-key. “It’s a lovely, classic Victorian cottage,” ex-cop Ken Wharfe told People magazine. “It’s probably two-up, three [rooms] down. It’s not very big, incredibly small.” Yet regardless of the size, it was perfect for Harry and the future Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle when they were living at Kensington. The pair took it on once William and Kate had left.

In the years before she became Queen, Victoria spent a lot of time at Kensington Palace. It was both a home and school for her, but the lessons were said to be extremely tough. In addition to that, the future ruler didn’t really mix with kids her own age, either, which must have been lonely for her. The royal admitted it was hard going, yet it didn’t cloud her opinion of her time there.

While painting the King’s Staircase at Kensington Palace, Kent included a couple of Easter eggs in the background. The first was a portrait of himself. As for the second, it was a depiction of a youngster widely known to contemporaries as the “Wild Boy.” This feral kid was discovered in a forest in Hanover, Germany, in 1725 before George I took him to the estate 12 months later. From there, the monarch treated him like a “human pet.” That certainly wouldn’t happen today!

While it might look okay today, Kensington Palace didn’t come out unscathed when Nazi Germany attacked London in 1940. In the early days of World War II, the upper floors of the property suffered some significant damage from Luftwaffe bombing, wrecking the exterior. A stark photograph of the aftermath was included in a 1945 book titled The Bombed Buildings of Britain.

Unlike today, Kensington Palace hasn’t always been open for public viewing. That decision was ultimately made in 1899 by someone who knew the place better than most: Victoria. After she gave the go-ahead, people were allowed to visit the State Apartments free of charge during the first 12 months, with more than 340,000 folks dropping by. Now, an adult ticket will set you back over $30.

This rare glimpse inside Kensington Palace got us curious about other spectacular properties owned by the monarchy, namely, Buckingham Palace. Unsurprisingly, the British royal family own a lot of art pieces. Apparently, they have 7,000 paintings and 450,000 photos, plus sculptures, literature, weaponry, carriages – virtually anything you can name. An area of Buckingham Palace called the Queen’s Gallery hosts some of these artworks, and the public can go in to see them.

If you’re lucky enough to ever eat at Buckingham Palace, you’re in luck. Not only will you dine among luxury, but virtually any food you could wish for is available for your pleasure. The Queen herself reportedly kept Special K and Tabasco sauce in her larders. She also had a steady supply of fancy chocolate and nuts kept for her.

It probably goes without saying that the royal family have hired a lot of nannies over the years. The nanny for the Cambridge children is a woman called Maria Teresa Turrion Borrallo. She was hired by Prince William and Kate Middleton in 2014. This photo shows her holding a cheeky Prince George inside Buckingham Palace.

A building as old as Buckingham Palace surely couldn’t not be haunted. More to the point, there’s a story of one suicide in the palace. This was Major John Gwynne, the private secretary to King Edward VIII. After causing a scandal by divorcing his wife, he ended up shooting himself inside his office. Now, rumor has it that a ghostly gunshot can still be heard echoing from that room.

The most honored guests at the palace – people like President Obama and Angelina Jolie – are entertained in a special place called the 1844 Room, which can be reset for both audiences and meals. It’s known by this name because the royals received Tsar Nicholas I there in 1844. And it’s positively luxurious in every way.

You’ll never need to wear a watch or look at a smartphone if you’re invited to Buckingham Palace. There are clocks everywhere. There are, in fact, at least 350 of them. And it falls to one person – the horological conservator – to maintain them all and make sure every last one displays the correct time.

A slightly unusual animal once lived at Buckingham Palace – King George V’s pet parrot Charlotte. He was utterly devoted to the bird. She would sit near him at dinner, pecking at seeds while everybody else ate their meal. And even while the king attended to official business, she would sometimes sit on his shoulder.

Not many people know that there’s an ATM hidden in the basement of Buckingham Palace, but there is. Members of the royal family – but nobody else – can go down there and pick up cash from the ATM whenever they need some. All of it, of course, has the monarch’s face on it.

In 1965 the members of the Beatles all picked up MBEs from Buckingham Palace. At the time, it was the height of Beatlemania, and fans of the band even tried climbing the gates to get a glimpse of them. But they wouldn’t have gotten far. Not only do guardsmen patrol the area around the palace, the Metropolitan Police are also on hand.

There’s an official website for the royal family, and naturally the palace staff have emails like everyone else. But Buckingham Palace also has its very own post office. Which makes a lot of sense – you wouldn’t expect a royal to go and line up with sensitive mail in a regular store. Oh, and the staff are also allowed to utilize the in-house postal services.

The Buckingham Palace gardens are, of course, utterly beautiful. But something people might not know is that it’s host to over 25 different varieties of Britain’s national flower, the rose. One is even named after Prince William! The people who grow the multitudes of roses are the palace’s live-in gardeners, who work to keep the gardens to the highest possible standard.

The way the royal family celebrates Christmas isn’t quite what you would expect. Apparently, they give each other joke gifts – and the more ridiculous, the better. Apparently, in 2013 Prince Harry got his grandmother a shower cap with “Ain’t life a b****” on it. Another year, Meghan Markle is said to have gotten her a musical hamster toy.

If you want to spot a royal, they tend to appear on the Buckingham Palace balcony for special occasions such as weddings. That balcony’s been around for a long time. It was built by Queen Victoria during her reign, specifically for the purpose of greeting the public. The first time it was used, it was to wave goodbye to Crimean War soldiers.

Visitors to Buckingham Palace probably wouldn’t ever have difficulty finding the place. Not only is it obviously a world-famous historical landmark, it’s also so big that it actually has its own zip code. Its designation is SW1A 1AAA. And houses within the SW1 postal code are considered some of the swankiest in London.

Long before Buckingham Palace was built, an old story goes, there was a monastery on the grounds – and one of the monks is still there to this day. According to some, this monk was imprisoned in a cell for some crime and passed away behind bars. Now, he supposedly pops up at night sometimes, wearing a cowl and rattling a ghostly chain.

One fascinating story about Buckingham Palace involves a teenager called Edward Jones. Back in 1838 – when security at the palace was far from what it is now – he developed a habit of sneaking in and eventually made off with some pairs of Queen Victoria’s underwear. The incident caused enough outcry to get new guards employed.

There are a lot of rooms in Buckingham Palace, and naturally the monarch has their choice of any of them. But according to people who have worked within the residence, the Queen actually only used six rooms in the entire place. These were apparently her bathroom, dressing room, bedroom, sitting room, a waiting room, and the Audience Room.

Buckingham Palace has its secrets, but perhaps the one of the most interesting is the hidden River Tyburn that flows beneath it. This waterway goes under the palace courtyard and its south wing. However, it’s considered to be more of a sewer these days, so perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Buckingham Palace has a secret sewer.

In many photographs of the Buckingham Palace interior, you can see a chandelier. There are so many of them, so you might wonder how on earth they stay lit and maintained? Well, in the olden days, King George IV kept a staff of 30 workers purely for the sake of chandelier-lighting. Nowadays, however, things are a little different. Remote controls can lower the chandeliers down towards the ground.

It only makes sense that a place such as Buckingham Palace would have something called the Grand Staircase within it. It’s among the first thing people see when entering the palace. The beautiful creation is made from marble, covered in red carpet, and as guests climb the stairs, they see portraits of royals from times past.

In 2006, as part of her 80th birthday celebrations, the Queen opened up the Buckingham Palace gardens to the archeology TV show Time Team. It was called “the Big Royal Dig.” The archeologists found some interesting things, including a Mesolithic blade, a pipe made of clay, and a diamond earring from Queen Victoria’s era.

This picture shows the Queen hosting an Emergency Services & Disaster Response Reception, but she herself had had to use those services before. In 2002 a fire broke out at Buckingham Palace, apparently starting in a disused toilet. Nobody was hurt, but it was surely a sobering thought that all that history could have been wiped out in a matter of hours if things had really gone wrong.

Buckingham Palace naturally has a throne room – but it’s not really used for its original purpose. Inside, there are monogrammed chairs for both Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. However, the Queen only ever actually sat on her throne in 1953, on the day of her coronation. Now the throne room is used simply to host special events at the palace.

Buckingham Palace does embrace new ideas. After all, Prince Albert introduced heating and lighting to the palace in the 19th century – and at the time those were exciting things. So, in 2012 it was agreed that the Queen would deliver her Christmas speech in 3D with the help of Sky. It wasn’t well received. Newspaper The Guardian said it was “squarely in the realm of gimmick.”

It’s not a thing to speak about in polite conversation with a royal, but obviously Buckingham Palace has bathrooms. And it has a lot of them, in fact. Apparently, the total number of bathrooms in the palace is 78, which means that it’s unlikely that any member of the royal family or their will be caught short.

For her Golden Jubilee in 2002, the Queen opened up the grounds of Buckingham Palace for a concert. It was advertised as one of the biggest gigs Britain would ever see, and interest was intense. Winners of a lottery were allowed inside the palace gardens, but at least a million more gathered outside. And Brian May played “God Save The Queen” from the roof.

Inside Buckingham Palace is a room once called the Chinese Luncheon Room. It’s packed full of furniture taken from the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, most of it done in a “Chinoiserie” manner. This is a Western form inspired by Chinese styles. This room has a new name now – it’s referred to as, simply, the Centre Room.

Some pretty odd things have been sent to Buckingham Palace as gifts over the years. These include a grasshopper-shaped wine cooler, a bed for dogs in the shape of a crown, and a figurine of her son Charles standing with kids’ character Postman Pat. In 2017 the palace held an exhibition of some of the most noteworthy gifts.

Both Charles and Prince Andrew were born within the walls of Buckingham Palace. Charles was born after 30 hours of labor, and Prince Philip wasn’t present – he was off playing squash somewhere else. When Prince Andrew was born in 1960, he was baptized in the palace’s Music Room like his brother had been.

Buckingham Palace was built using something called Oolitic limestone, but nobody knew back then what properties the rock had. In 2017 it transpired that the limestone was formed over millions of years around the bodies of microorganisms. That meant that there were miniature fossils packed into the walls of the palace.

At Buckingham Palace, banquets are a big deal. In fact, they can be apparently planned out at least a year in advance by the Master of the Household and their staff. Thousands of glass and silver pieces have to be carefully polished, every dish is prepared from scratch, and the Queen used to get final say over the smallest of details.

A royal funeral isn’t quite like a regular one. When a king or queen passes away, their body lies in state so people can come and pay their respects. King Edward VII passed away on May 6, 1910, and his body was kept at Buckingham Palace until May 17. Reportedly, this was partly because his widow adamantly refused to let him be moved.

Each year, the Queen would host around three garden get-togethers, and guests would get to come in and experience the Buckingham Palace grounds. Some of the luckier ones might even have gotten to talk the Queen or another royal. According to the British Monarchist Foundation, 20,000 sandwiches get eaten during the course of one of these events.

It’s long been rumored that beneath Buckingham Palace there exists a secret system of tunnels. Some say that they’re linked to the Houses of Parliament, others say they connect to Clarence House. But it seems that if anyone knows for certain, they’re not sharing it with the media. It’s a claim that remains unconfirmed but plausible.

Royals don’t necessarily have to go to hospital if they don’t want to. There just so happens to be a fully operational surgery within the palace walls. All that’s needed is for a doctor to arrive. This was what happened when King George battled cancer in 1951. Surgeons attended to him inside the palace, so news of his ill health wouldn’t get out.

The late Queen’s pets were apparently treated with the utmost respect, and that means they had virtually free run of Buckingham Palace. Guests visiting the palace could expect to see adorable little corgis running around. And in case any of the animals had accidents, there was cleaning equipment strategically hidden around the palace.

Britain was hit hard during World War II, and Buckingham Palace wasn’t spared. In fact, its royal residents were lucky to escape with their lives. The palace was hit on nine occasions, with one bomb completely leveling the Palace Chapel building. Just a few hours prior to that, members of the royal family had been inside it.

In 1982 there was a dramatic failing in Buckingham Palace’s security. An intruder named Michael Fagan made it into Buckingham Palace and found his way to the Queen’s room. The story goes that the Queen stalled the unwelcome guest by talking to him, but Fagan himself claims she instantly ran off. Though no-one was hurt, it was an incredibly embarrassing incident for the guards.

Buckingham Palace is massive and lots of people sleep there. To be exact, the palace contains 52 bedrooms for royals and their guests, and 188 bedrooms for the staff. Oh, and there’s a cafeteria, a cinema, and a pool. If the royals didn’t live there, it would make a great luxury hotel!

Believe it or not, Buckingham Palace has a real, Hogwarts-style hidden passage within its walls. In the White Drawing Room – created by John Nash back in 1899 – there’s a secret door behind one of the massive mirrors which leads to the Queen’s quarters. The ornaments around it are glued down so they won’t fall off when the door opens. Imagine what it would be like to go in there…