Buckingham Palace

Buckingham Palace is the official London residence and administrative headquarters of the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom.

Located in the heart of London and surrounded by 2 royal parks

The palace first originated as Buckingham House, which was built by John Sheffield, 3rd Earl of Mulgrave and
Marquess of Normandy, as his London residence in 1703. In the same year, Sheffield was made the Duke of
Buckingham and he consequently named the house after his title.

George III decided to purchase Buckingham House for his wife, Queen Charlotte, in 1761 so to create a comfortable family home near to St James’s Palace.As a result, 14 of George and Charlotte’s 15 children were born at the house.

Buckingham House was transformed into Buckingham

The last major structural additions were made in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including the East front, which contains the well-known balcony on which the royal family traditionally congregates to greet crowds outside.

The palace measures 108 metres (354 ft) by 120 metres (390 ft), is 24 metres (79 ft) high and contains over
77,000 m2 (830,000 sq ft) of floorspace.

There are 775 rooms, including 19 state rooms, 52 principal bedrooms, 188 staff bedrooms, 92 offices, and
78 bathrooms.There are also 760 windows and 1,514 doors.

Many of the Palace 's principal rooms were contained on the piano nobile, or principal floor, behind the west facing garden facade, at the rear of the palace. At the centre of this ornate suite of state rooms was the
Music Room, its large bow the dominant feature of the façade.

Flanking the Music Room are the Blue and the White Drawing Rooms.

At the center of the suite, serving as a corridor to link the state rooms, is the Picture Gallery, which is top lit and 50 meters (55 yards) long. The Gallery is hung with works by Rembrandt, van Dyck, Rubens, and

The Guard Room contains white marble statues of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, in Roman costume, set in a tribune lined with tapestries. These very formal rooms are used only for ceremonial and official entertaining, but are open to the public every summer.

The grand Ballroom is the palace 's pride.It 's the largest room, at 36.6m long, 18m wide and 13.5m high. The first event held there was a celebration marking the end of the Crimean War in 1856. It’s not all ballrooms and banquet halls, though: there’s also a post office, police station, doctor’s surgery, cinema and pool.

The palace has 760 windows that are cleaned every six weeks. The fabulous grand Ballroom was the first room to have electricity installed in 1883. Lightening was extended to the rest of the palace over the next four years, and there are now more than 40,000 light bulbs.

Over 800 members of staff live there, including a flagman, fendersmith and clockmaker. The latter must keep busy, as the palace contains 350 clocks and watches! They’re wound up every week by two horological conservators, who work full-time to keep them ticking