JOIN USRoyal rendezvous
London’s summer is the best time to bask in the city’s culture, heritage and people. But the queen would rather unwind elsewhere and throw open the palace’s state rooms for public view instead, writes Varshini Murali.
It was a very flustering wait as I stood rather impatiently by the Buckingham Palace gates, craning my neck over the bustling crowd that had gathered at this popular London tourist spot, for a familiar glimpse of my family that was to join me.
For, I held in my hand four tickets to enter a building that many only had a glimpse of from the outside, that many, including me, had waved randomly at — at the statue-like guards who held their ground and laughter, or at the queen, whom I had once fleetingly hoped would be staring out her window.
The queen, however, was on her summer holiday, away from the plush confines of her home on the tree-lined Mall, which was flanked on either side by two lush royal parks — St James and Green. With the queen away on holiday, the palace could relax its prim and proper stance in the summer.
And so, the tourist lot, who can be seen perpetually outside the palace gates, are ushered in for a price and shown around the 19 state rooms that make up the palace’s west wing. It didn’t really matter that we were 15 minutes late. We were still garlanded with audio-guides and asked to join the next batch of tourists who were waiting, with bated breath, to be called inside.
Our first sighting was that of the famous Quadrangle, an experience that bordered on déjà vu, given the amount of television footage it has received over the past many years. After a quick scan of the familiar brick-red expanse, we crossed the threshold into the red, white and gold Grand Hall and made our way up John Nash’s Grand Staircase into the Guard Room. Having hurried up at first, only to remember later that this wasn’t exactly the stairwell in my apartment, I retraced my steps to soak in the polished surroundings, marvel at the gold-bronze balustrade and absorb its intricacy.
The Guard Room gave way to the Green Room, a room with a golden-white coved ceiling, named very obviously after its colour theme — green silk and heavy gilding adorn its walls. But aside from the luxury that shone off the silk and reflected off of the chandeliers, what was truly attention-worthy was an 18th century French cabinet, panelled with semi-precious stones that were shaped as various fruit and flowers.
The Green Room acts as an antechamber to the Throne Room. I’m not quite sure why — it seemed very instinctive then — but my expectations of the Throne Room matched with certain images I had been fed with during my childhood. Imagine my disappointment when what I eventually saw had no resemblance to the lavish depictions in Disney’s Cinderella or Aladdin. A proscenium arch contained two unimpressive ‘thrones’ on a dais, bearing the initials ‘ER’ and ‘P’. Of more interest were the family photos that were displayed here, particularly that of the recent Prince William-Kate Middleton royal wedding.
Dressed up drama
The Picture Gallery came next, housing some great works of art by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Rubens, Canaletto and van Dyck, followed by what turned out to be the highlight of the tour — the Ballroom. The Ballroom, the largest room in the palace, held at its centre, the wedding dress worn by Kate Middleton, now the Duchess of Cambridge. While Middleton’s wedding dress was the main draw of the 2011 special exhibition — ‘The Royal Wedding Dress: A Story of Great British Design’ — her tiara, oak leaf and acorn themed earrings, size 5.5 wedding shoes and eight-tiered wedding cake (the top three layers were replicas, but the lowest tier still bore the mark the newly-wed royal couple had made using a ceremonial knife) fought for the same amount of attention.
A five-minute video by Sarah Burton, the dress designer, accompanied the visitor’s experience. Any questions I might have had earlier about why no one else seemed to be ogling at the ‘Imperial Eggs’, part of the Fabergé collection that was also on display at the palace, were more than answered by the crowd — a vast majority of which were women — that had assembled at the Ballroom, taking up any available seating space to hear the story of the dress.
Burton explained that the elegant and feminine message that the dress conveyed had been woven in through six different types of lace. Each carried a beautiful
depiction of a national flower — thistles, roses, shamrocks, daffodils and more were cut out and appliquéd onto the silk tulle. Her other magical touch, the video revealed, was in the way they had “weighted the whole of the bottom part of the dress with canvas, so that when the dress was lifted, it would fall back in exactly the same position.”
But looking at the dress, as it stood in stark isolation, very much ghostly at first glance, and embellished only with Middleton’s ‘something borrowed’ — a Cartier tiara lent by the queen that hung like a halo on top — one realises the beauty that the Duchess herself had added to it. For, the dress had stood out all the more due to her smiling, exuberant presence. After all, it was her wedding day.
The final leg of our tour included the scarlet and gold State Dining Room, with its saucer-shaped ceiling, Chinese porcelain vases and walls lined with royal portraits, the resplendent, onyx-pillared Blue Drawing Room that contained dark blue Sèvres vases and the bow-shaped Music Room, which had a high, domed ceiling supported by lapis lazuli columns.
Without a doubt, however, it was the White Drawing Room that turned out to be the most opulent of all, decked as it was with golden upholstery, a yellow piano and a mirror that concealed a secret pathway, one that connected the west wing to the queen’s residential quarters. I hovered around here in exaggerated awe, hoping that the queen might have one last surprise for us. Perhaps, she had never really gone, and would pop out from behind the mirror to send us off with ‘a thank you for coming-hope you’ve enjoyed the tour-handshake’? Wishful thinking, alas.
As we strolled out through the immaculately-maintained 40-acre palace gardens (as if this was where they would falter) in search of an exit, I clung on to a ticket that had made way for some newly gilded memories, memories that I had foolishly feared would be wiped away in the daily London drizzle. I needn’t have worried, for as I was leaving, my ticket was converted into an annual pass, making me eligible for a free entry this year — this Diamond Jubilee year, when one might have a chance to sneak a peek at, what else, the queen’s diamonds!