As promised here are pictures of the Round Pond which is situated in front of Kensington Palace. You can see the exact location on the Wikimapia page where you will also notice that it is more square than round.
Archive for the tag 'Kensington Palace'
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
22 Comments CherryPie on Feb 16th 2010
Filed under Heritage, Holidays, Kent February 2010
Kensington – The Cupola Room
The Cupola Room is the principal state room of the palace, and the most lavishly decorated.
The dominant architectural elements of the room are the giant Ionic pilasters and the massive grey marble doorways supported by Ionic columns. Kent made extensive use of trompe l’oeil and much of the architectural decoration is painted, including the [...]
6 Comments CherryPie on Feb 13th 2010
From the guidebook:
The King’s Grand Staircase was originally built by Sir Christopher Wren in 1689 in a similar style to the Queen’s Staircase. It was made of oak, and had plain panelled walls. When a new Guard Chamber (no longer surviving) was built at the foot of the stairs in 1692-3 the staircase [...]
14 Comments CherryPie on Feb 11th 2010
Filed under Heritage, Holidays, Kent February 2010
Kensington Palace
After a quick painless journey on the high speed train (from Ashford) followed by a rather more arduous journey on the tube we arrived at Kensington where we took a brief stroll through the gardens to Kensington Palace.
The official guidebook to the palace opens with the following words:
Welcome to Kensington Palace, once a favoured home [...]
8 Comments CherryPie on Feb 10th 2010
