Pierce-Goulding - Royal London: the haunts and hideouts of kings and queens from Londons past and present

Karen Pierce-Goulding

Royal London: The haunts and hideouts of kings and queens from Londons past and present

Karen Pierce-Goulding

This epub edition is published in 2012 by Crimson Publishing

Crimson Publishing, Westminster House, Kew Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 2ND

Crimson Publishing 2012

Epub edition 2012 ISBN: 978-1-78059-125-4

The author has asserted her moral rights to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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To Mary & David Tucker of London Walks (www.walks.com) with love and thanks.

and to my daughter Isobella, who shares her Daddys boundless energy and enthusiasm for learning new things.

Karen Pierce-Goulding is a winner of the prestigious Blue Badge Guide of the Year award and was listed by Travel + Leisure magazine as one of their Worlds Greatest Tour Guides. A journalist and reformed actress, Karen loves to tell a good story and she and her husband, Adam, both regularly shout their heads off in the street leading walking tours for London Walks. Karen lives in North London.

At times, the Royal Family can seem distant from everyday London life. They are the stuff of period drama or titillating tabloid tales. All very entertaining but actually irrelevant to modern London living.

Yet an ordinary London day is touched in dozens of subtle ways by the extraordinary tales of royal history.

If youve ever changed trains at Victoria, walked along Kingsway or shopped on Regent Street, you are brushing up against the Royal Family.

If youve ever had a drink at the Kings Head, or taken up a sunny spot in Kensington Gardens, or if youve ever hired a dinner jacket, then, once again, the Royal Family are very near at hand.

Study at Kings College? A night at the theatre in Haymarket or Drury Lane? Or the famous Proms? Too highbrow? Well how about a return to the pub and a night in the White Hart at Mile End. If you think this last course of action will take you away from the Royal Family, then think again.

And we havent even mentioned palaces yet. Weve plenty of those.

This book attempts to bring to life some of those more arcane London locations shaped by royal history as well as detailing the famous landmarks of Royal London. As we chase the ghosts of King Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I, well meet the current Royal Family and follow their footsteps through the modern-day metropolis.

I hope you enjoy our trip along the Queens highway(s) and byways.

KPG

London, April 2012

Kensington has royal connections that go back to the Conqueror, when King William I granted land to one Geoffrey de Mowbray who, in turn, gave tenancy to Aubrey de Vere. The de Veres later became the Earls of Oxford hence the name of nearby Earls Court.

Great shopping, high-end dining, rich in history, rich in culture, sometimes just plain rich, theres even a bona fide royal palace. The phrase very Kensington becomes a byword for regality and luxury.

Kensington Palace is one of those London buildings that divides opinion: some are of a mind that it is somewhat plain to behold; others think that its downright bleak and looks more like an orphanage than a palace.

But when we throw the two magic words Christopher Wren in the direction of its red brick faade, a little architectural fairy dust sticks to the old place. Its clean, classical lines suddenly become more elegant. Its dark windows suddenly seem less foreboding and more like a welcome.

The Duke of Windsor (formerly Prince of Wales, briefly King Edward VIII) once commented on the number of royals living at Kensington Palace by waggishly dubbing it an aunt heap.

The cast list of residents is an impressive one indeed.

The newlywed Prince and Princess of Wales moved into apartments 8 and 9 in 1981. Diana lived here until her death in 1997. Her coffin rested here on 5 September 1997 before her final journey to Westminster Abbey and thence to Althorp. Princes William and Harry were raised here and Prince William made a return of sorts in 2011 when it was announced that he and the Duchess of Cambridge would use Kensington Palace as their official London residence.

In 1819, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn and Earl of Dublin (fourth son of George III) and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld had a daughter, born here at the palace, who would go on to reign over us (happy and glorious) for longer than anyone else so far.

Princess Margaret, late sister of HM Queen Elizabeth II, lived at Kensington Palace. These past few years have been open season for documentary-makers keen to present the more lurid aspects of the Princesss life on screen. Suffice it to say, all have been broadcast after the 9pm watershed. How many of the details can be proven as fact is not my job to say. But one detail did amuse

The Princess was famed for enjoying her food and would tuck in with great alacrity thus posing a problem for her royal guests. Royal etiquette dictates that, when dining with the Royal Family, should the hosts put down the eating irons, then you, the guest, must stop eating too. If one wanted to enjoy the fruits of the wonderful kitchens at Kensington, one therefore had to attack the meal with gusto, before the plates were taken away.

First monarch to live here from 1689; first monarch to die here in 1702. Preferred the fresh air of countrified Kensington (!) to the damp of the riverbank Palace of Whitehall.

HM The Queens cousins became the subject of a minor royal controversy or, if you prefer, a royal minor controversy when their Kensington Palace rent for apartment 10 was raised to a more ahem competitive level. The new rent was set at 120,000 per year, a leap of around 116,000 from the nominal rent paid hitherto.

At first he may sound like an inappropriate chum of Prince Harry, but Peter the Wild Boy was actually a foundling teenager who lived at the court of King George I in 1726 and 1727. Found naked and mute in the woods outside Hanover in Germany, Peter lived to the ripe old age of 70, by which time he is reported to have a clear understanding of speech, but a practical vocabulary of only three words: Peter and King George.