The King and Queen announced yesterday that they will not return to live in Buckingham Palace, despite £369million of ongoing renovations, ending around two centuries of royal tradition.
The 10-year-long reservicing programme is due to conclude next year, focusing on essential plumbing, electrical cabling and heating, which had not been updated since shortly after World War Two.
The astonishing sum of public money to refurbish the so-called “Monarchy HQ” had been justified because the monarch and his wife were expected to move back into the iconic residence.
However, King Charles and Queen Camilla will instead remain at Clarence House, on The Mall in London, next to St James’s Palace.
With the Prince and Princess of Wales making it abundantly clear that eight-bedroom Forest Lodge is their “forever home,” it seems unlikely that a royal will ever permanently return to Buckingham Palace – ending 200 years of British royal tradition.
The Palace, then referred to as Buckingham House, was first purchased by King George III for his wife Queen Charlotte in 1761, with it later becoming known as the Queen’s House.
Skip forward to 1826, and King George IV had ordered the reconstruction of the House and intended to transform it into a palace.
But it wasn’t until Queen Victoria in 1837 that a monarch actually moved into the now iconic residence, just three weeks after her accession. She became the first sovereign to travel to her coronation from the Palace.
Queen Victoria also made the first recorded royal balcony appearance in 1851 during celebrations for the opening of the Great Exhibition; the start of an iconic Royal Family tradition.
And while she did not live in the Palace until she died in 1901, as she found it too painful to spend time there following the death of her beloved husband, Prince Albert, she did begin the trend of monarchs permanently residing there.
In the following years, King Edward VII, King George V and King George VI (Queen Elizabeth II’s father) all lived at the Palace.
The exception to the rule was King Edward VIII, who did not like Buckingham Palace and refused to live there during his 11-month reign.
