Experience an afternoon fit for royalty this summer, exploring Buckingham Palace Garden and enjoying a picnic on the lawn.
The garden at Buckingham Palace will open to visitors from July to September this year, allowing the grounds of Her Majesty The Queen’s official London residence to be explored with unprecedented freedom for the first time.
Visitors will be free to explore a route through the garden that encompasses the 156-metreHerbaceous Border, plane trees planted by and named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and views of the island and its beehives across the 3.5-acre lake. The unique opportunity to enjoy a picnic on one of the sweeping lawns overlooking the Palace will also be part of the visit.
Additional features in the southwest of the garden, including the Rose Garden, summer house and wildflower meadow, can be viewed through one of the many guided tours that will run each day.
CELEBRATORY EVENTS
Buckingham Palace’s 39-acre garden fulfils many roles. It is The Queen’s private London garden, but it also plays a key part in the busy calendar of royal events. The most famous of these events are The Queen’s Garden Parties, which in an average year see around 24,000 guests from all walks of life welcomed into the garden each summer. For over 200 years the garden has been used by the royal family for official entertaining and celebratory events.
NATURAL HABITAT
Described as ‘a walled oasis in the middle of London’, the garden is the largest private garden in the capital and boasts 325 wild-plant species, 30 species of breeding birds, and over 1,000 trees, including 98 plane trees, 85 different species of oak and the National Collection of Mulberry Trees.
The garden also provides a habitat for native birds rarely seen in London, including the common sandpiper, sedge warbler and lesser whitethroat, some of which use the area around its central lake as a nesting site.
Other areas of the garden include the 156-metre Herbaceous Border, wildflower meadow and Rose Garden. Structures in the garden include a wisteria-clad summer house, the enormous Waterloo Vase made for George IV in Italy, and the Palace tennis court, where King George VI and Fred Perry played in the 1930s.
Hourly short talks will give further information about the history of the garden. Visitors can also learn more by reading the beautiful new book that follows a year in the life of the royal garden at Buckingham Palace. Gardening insights and tips from Head Gardener, Mark Lane, are presented alongside atmospheric photography and an authoritative text, including royal anecdotes. The book can be purchased from any of the Royal Collection Trust shops or online atwww.royalcollectionshop.co.uk.
MASTERPIECES FROM BUCKINGHAM PALACE
Sixty-five of the best paintings in the Royal Collection can also be viewed this summer in The Queen’s Gallery, only a few minutes’ walk from the entrance to the garden. Discover masterpieces by Vermeer, Rubens, Titian and other Old Masters in this acclaimed new exhibition.
HOW TO BOOK
Book online for guaranteedentry at: www.rct.uk/buckinghampalace
• The Garden at Buckingham Palace will open from Friday 9 July to Sunday 19 September 2021. Tickets are priced at £16.50 for adults. Garden Highlights Guided Tours should be booked with the main ticket and are priced at £6.50 for adults. Tours will run 12 times a day.
• The State Rooms and Garden Tour at Buckingham Palace will run six times a day on weekends from Saturday 10 July to Sunday 19 September 2021. Tickets are priced at £60 for adults.
