3-085-699 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Views of Kensington Palace, the State Rooms of which are, by the Queen's command, to be restored and thrown open to the public: entrance gateway, 1898. 'With the graceful thought for her people which characterises all her royal bounty, the Queen has...presented to her loyal subjects, the public, two gifts which will be highly valued not only by the present generation of Londoners and sightseers generally, but by their children and their children's children. The State Rooms of Kensington Palace, which have been closed for many a long year, are...to be...thrown open to the public, together with the banqueting-room built by Sir Christopher Wren...Kensington's homely red-brick Palace is endeared to countless numbers of the Queen's subjects, primarily as her Majesty's birthplace...Queen Anne began that long series of additions which give the house its heterogeneous appearance. George I. added the cupola-room and the famous great staircase. George II. built the west wing as a nursery, and died there in 1760; the Duke of Sussex, the son of George III., lived and died in the Palace, where he collected his splendid library'. From "Illustrated London News", 1898.