Inside Clarence House: King Charles and Queen Camilla’s private London home

As and head back to London after spending the summer at Balmoral, the couple have made Clarence House their home rather than nearby Buckingham Palace.Once the home of the late Queen Mother, Clarence House has been .Situated on The Mall, with its gardens overlooked by nearby St James’s Palace, Clarence House was built in 1825-27 by the architect John Nash.It was originally intended as a residence for Henry, the Duke of Clarence, who later became King William IV, and has since been inhabited by many senior royals.Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother famously lived there from 1953, when her daughter became Queen, until her death in 2002 at the age of 101.

It was Charles’s grandmother who got him into gardening and she was able to shape the mansion’s grounds into the exquisite gardens they are today with his help.Charles took over the property shortly after the late Queen Mother’s death.Royal gardening author George Plumptre once said about the gardens of Clarence House: “It’s a lovely little walled urban sanctuary.”The gardens are quite shady because there are enormous plane trees running along them, but what makes it nice is that it stretches from the front of Clarence House along the front of the adjacent St James’s Palace.”The house is on the ground floor, where many royal engagements are held. However, the King and Queen’s private apartments are closed to the public.

According to the Royal Collection Trust, Charles and Camilla did not change too much when they moved in, as the layout and decoration are “much as they were in The Queen Mother’s time, with important works from Her Majesty’s collection of art in their original positions”.The Lancaster Room, the first room off the hallway, had been used as a waiting room for visitors, while the Morning Room was used as a breakfast room with a lovely view over the garden.This is the room was said to have met with King Charles in when upon his cancer diagnosis announcement.The Queen Mother had her more intimate dinners in the library, but for entertaining large groups of guests she would use the Garden Room, which was created from the merge of Princess Margaret’s old rooms in 1960.Princess Margaret initially lived with her mother in Clarence House until her marriage to Antony Armstrong-Jones, with Elizabeth and Prince Philip also living there for a time after they married in 1947.Since Charles inherited the house he has preserved its style and character, as well as introducing organic gardening methods and planting a new garden in memory of the Queen Mother.