Spot the stowaway making sure he didn’t get left behind after my recent visit to Kent. Some of you might remember he is a rescued “Room Bear”.
For more of this weeks PhotoHunt pictures check out tnchick.
We are now leaving the Palace to take a walk through the gardens towards the Round Pond, which you can see from an upstairs window just beyond the statue of Queen Victoria. On the way there I really must show you the sunken garden:
The Sunken Garden was laid out during the reign of Edward VII and opened in May 1909 on ground formerly occupied by forcing-houses and potting sheds. It was intended to demonstrate the formal type of garden that had existed at kensington before it was landscaped in the 18th Century, and was modelled on the “Tudor Garden’ at Hampton Court. The three lead fountains were formerly cisterns at the palace.
13 Comments CherryPie on Feb 18th 2010
From the guidebook:
Queen Mary’s Gallery was originally furnished with fine lacquered chairs, tables and cabinets and 154 pieces of Chinese and Japanese porcelain. The key surviving features of the room are the two ornamental mirrors of Vauxhall plate glass, supplied by Gerrit Jensen, with magnificent carve and gilt surrounds by Grinling Gibbons.
The book then goes on to describe other key features that are not pictured here.
We have just about finished the tour of the Palace, all that remains to be seen is the grounds.
10 Comments CherryPie on Feb 17th 2010
This room is 96ft long and was built in 1695 for William III and originally furnished with green velvet hangings and white damask curtains. It was intended to house the finest pictures from the Royal Collection here.
The King’s Gallery has been refurbished following the decorative scheme devised for George I. In 1725, the King commissioned William Kent to design and decorate a new gallery which had to incorporate the carved cornice and other decorative features designed for William III. The wind-dial above the chimneypiece, for example, was made for William by Robert Morden in 1694 but Kent was asked to design a new marble chimneypiece and carved overmantle around it. The points of the compass are marked round the circumference of a map of north-western Europe and the direction of the prevailing wind is indicated by the pointer operated by rods connected to a wind-vane on the roof. In the corners are painted scenes, probably by Robert Robinson, illustrating the four continents (Austalia was not discovered until the later 18th century). Above the wind-dial, set in a circular frame is a small fresco of the Madonna and Child, which was traditionally ascribed to Raphael and is not thought to be the work of the 16th-century Italian artist Annibale Carracci.
In the first picture you can just see a small portion of the very lavishly painted ceiling. The paintings are on canvas and depict scenes from the story of Ulysses. The mythological scenes were painted by Kent himself whilst the surround work is that of his Spanish assistant Francisco de Valentia
Info from the official guidebook.
22 Comments CherryPie on Feb 16th 2010
Whilst I was at work today, we had another of those wonderful sunsets which I just had to capture on my mobile phone. I seem to remember it being a bit more vivid than it appears in this photo, but maybe that was just me viewing the world through rose tinted spectacles.
I shall miss these views when we move office location later in the year, especially as we will be sitting in the middle of the building so there will be no views of the outside world.
Speaking of work reminds me of the strange incident that happened when I was alone in the lift last week. At the end of the day I pressed the lift button and waited… When I got in the lift I noticed that the button for floor 0 had already been pressed, which I thought was a little odd because the lift was empty and no-one had exited before I got in. The lift then proceeded to go in totally the opposite direction to floor 4 which is completely unoccupied now. There was nobody waiting to get in the lift either! If someone had pressed the button up there the lift would normally have stopped at floor 4 first before coming back to floor 3 where I got on. As I was on my own I found it a little unsettling to say the least.
The next morning I mentioned it to the people who got in the lift with me. One of them mentioned that the building security guards have in the past commented that very occasionally it behaves in that way which made everyone shudder.
33 Comments CherryPie on Feb 15th 2010
14 Comments CherryPie on Feb 15th 2010
We go through life seeing things not as they are but as we are, and love is the only lens available to straighten out our vision of the world and offer some hope of understanding.
From 1000 paths to love by David Baird
8 Comments CherryPie on Feb 14th 2010
