The amazing life and chronicles of Christian BS.

A Trip to Buckingham Palace

I found myself today (the date of writing being Monday, the 4^th August) on a somewhat impromptu visit to Buckingham Palace. Whilst having heard word of the trip the previous week, I only found out the date and time this morning when I was on the rounds picking-up the clients.

We boarded the minibuses and left the premises of the Neighbourhood Centre at a little past 13:00 and arrived at the gates of Buckingham Palace at roughly 14:40. Our entrance however, was not that of the regular tourists. We entered through one of the main perimeter gates at the front, and fro there proceeded through a subsidiary arch on the façade of the building. We entered the quadrangle and from there were escorted via wheelchair lift, after being given our entrance stickers and audio guides, and entered a corridor adjacent to the quadrangle. From there, we took a lift up, and entered the first floor through a burgundy tapestry room, home to some if the palace’s elaborately woven tapestries.

From here, we continued into a small room whose walls were covered with gilded mirrors, giving the illusion that the room was far larger than it in fact was. The next room in store for us, was the state ballroom, which for the first time ever was open to the public whilst set-out for a royal state banquet. This was an enormous room, probably able to seat around 150 people. It was dimly lit, but elegantly decorated with in the royal colours: carmine, cream, and gold. The coving and walls were covered in relief work, mirrors and portraits adorned the walls, and Sevres porcelain sat upon the ledges around the room. Each table was laid with delicately with fine silverware. It was by far the most imposing room yet with 6 chandeliers the widths of which were that of a small car; showing the money and therefore power that the Royal family held and still hold today.

The ensuing rooms were the various ballrooms; used to entertain foreign diplomats on state visits. Each of which had a marvellous pair of chandeliers and designated colour scheme which matched the limited colours in which Sevres porcelain is made: blue white, yellow and green. Attached to these rooms was the music room; semi-circular with a cupola in the way of a roof, and a jet black baby grand piano near the windows. Two pillars also flanked wither side of the doors„ which used scagliola (a method of coating a stone surface with a pigmented mixture which hardens and solidified to look like marble) in order to give the pillars the colour of lapis lazuli. The throne room, located at the end of the chain of drawing rooms, was one decorated in silk burgundy wallpaper, with a relief-worked archway behind which sat the two thrones; identically constructed chairs perched upon a raised section of the floor. The frames of the chairs were made of a dark - almost black - wood with pads and backs made from a fabric in the same colour as the wallpaper.

We then went once again through corridors whose walls were laden with art pieces, in particular Dutch interiors, before going downstairs for a final visit to the bow room; a turquoise room with large windows that open up on to the terrace where we proceeded to, and handed in our audio-guides. From here we made our way back to the minibuses, and headed back to the centre, dropping off the clients along the way.

All in all, we had a thoroughly enjoyable day, being neither too rushed nor too busy which gave us plenty of time to absorb the rich surroundings and history of the building we were in.