Buckingham Palace Gardens

The Garden at Buckingham Palace is a large private park attached to the London residence of the monarch. It is situated at the rear of Buckingham Palace, occupying a 42 acres site in the City of Westminster, and has two-and-a-half miles of gravel paths.

Buckingham Palace has Royal gardens, lake and woodland, covering about 16 hectares. The gardens originated in the 1640s, were re-designed in the late-18th century, and have been further developed in the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1608-9 the ground north of the present Buckingham Palace was planted with mulberry trees. In 1640, the interest in the Mulberry Garden was sold to Lord Goring who owned neighbouring Goring House. Following a disastrous fire in about 1674, Arlington rebuilt Goring House, renaming it Arlington House. The Duke of Buckingham bought the site after 1685, and rebuilt the by then ruinous Arlington House and enlarged the site. He located his new house, subsequently renamed Buckingham House, on the main axis of St James’s Park. He employed Henry Wise, master gardener to Queen Anne, to make improvements to the gardens and Wise laid out a formal garden largely to the east of the new house. George IV rebuilt the house from 1826, renaming it Buckingham Palace, and at the same time remodelled the garden.

The gardens of Buckingham Palace, the main residence of the reigning British monarch. The C18 formal garden made by Henry Wise was replaced by an informal garden, landscaped by William Townsend Aiton c 1826. Aiton’s work largely survives with C20 modifications.Buckingham Palace is situated in central London, c 500m to the north of Victoria station and immediately to the west of St James’s Park. The c 16ha site is bounded to the north by Constitution Hill, which separates the Palace from Green Park (qv). The east boundary is formed by the road which encircles the Queen Victoria Memorial (listed grade I). Buckingham Palace Road and Buckingham Gate road form the boundary to the south-east, and Lower Grosvenor Place the boundary to the south, Grosvenor Place being the boundary to the west. The largely level site rises in the north-west corner, corresponding with the rise in Constitution Hill, and is enclosed within high brick walls of C18 to mid C19 date.The main entrance to the gardens, to the north of the Palace, is approached from the Palace forecourt to the east. The forecourt railings, gate piers, gates, and lamps (listed grade I) were made between 1901 and 1911 by Sir Aston Webb as part of his Victoria Memorial scheme. The entrance to the north of the Palace is through a gateway in the colonnade screen (listed grade I), made as part of Nash’s building programme of c 1830. The Greek Doric screen, decorated with the royal arms, is made from Bath stone with cast-iron columns. A minor entrance in the southern boundary wall, Grosvenor Gate, leads north from Grosvenor Place to the head gardener’s house and yard. A second minor entrance to the garden is to be found to the south-east where a pair of tall wooden gates inserted in the south-east boundary wall, the ‘Electricians Gate’, provides access directly from Buckingham Gate road.

 

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