Buckingham Palace Garden Opens To Public For First Time

Jul 10, 2021 by apost team

In an unprecedented move, the Royal Collection Trust has opened the Queen’s Buckingham Palace grounds to the public for the entire summer. That means from Friday, July 9, Londoners can have a picnic right on the palace lawn, followed by a stroll through the garden. However, demand is already quite high, meaning long wait times for a ticket (16.50 pounds or around $23) to enter the grounds.

The Royal Collection Trust’s historic decision to open the palace lawn and garden to the public is partly due to the current coronavirus pandemic. The Washington Post reports that normally Queen Elizabeth II hosts garden parties at the palace, which can attract 8,000 guests per gathering. Another 8,000 guests would normally tour the palace itself, walking through the garden to explore the State Rooms. However, coronavirus has put a stop to these plans, and thus the Royal Collection Trust decided to open up the grounds to the public for the summer months.

But before you pack a picnic blanket and a bottle of prosecco, know that there are some restrictions: no alcoholic beverages or knives are allowed.

Sarah Davis, head of media relations for the Royal Collection Trust, told The Post that she expects 2,000 visitors a day. And as of Saturday, July 10, there are no more tickets available for the months of July, August or September.

For visitors who want to take something home with them as a souvenir, the palace’s gift shop is also offering special picnic-themed merchandise — a reusable bottle, metal straws, luxury picnic blankets and Buckingham Palace Vintage Champagne.

“Explore Buckingham Palace Garden with unique access this summer, and discover for yourself its sights before enjoying a unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to picnic with views of the Palace,” the Royal Collection Trust wrote on its website ahead of the opening. “You can also see the magnificent State Rooms on a special guided tour of the Palace this spring and summer.”

The garden will also have food stalls where guests can purchase food and drink.

According to the Royal Collection Trust’s website, the palace garden is a 39-acre “walled oasis in the middle of London,” making it the largest private garden in the city. And beyond the well-manicured lawn that surrounds the palace, the garden is also full of variety, including 325 wild-plant species, over 1,000 trees and 30 different species of breeding birds. The garden’s “central feature” is its lake. Created in the 19th century, the lake was originally supplied by The Serpentine lake in Hyde Park. Today, however, it is a “self-regulating ecosystem” fed by a borehole.

“The fact that you have 40 acres slap bang in the middle of London. Apart from seeing one or two tall buildings … you wouldn’t know,” said Derek Tarr, a 75-year-old London resident who gives garden tours in an interview with The Post.

It wasn’t until 1761 that the palace grounds came under royal ownership after George III bought the land as a private residence. During this early period in the garden’s history, it was home to exotic animals, including one of the first zebras ever seen in England, along with an elephant.

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But the garden that guests see today — sorry, no more elephants or zebras — came into existence in 1825, when George IV converted Buckingham House into Buckingham Palace. Because the palace required an accompanying garden, George IV hired William Townsend Aiton, previously in charge of the royal botanical garden in Kew, to landscape the new and improved garden. Aiton’s most lasting and significant changes to the grounds include his addition of the lake and the “Mound, an artificial high bank on the south side to screen the Palace from the Royal Mews.” Of course, the garden has also undergone minor changes since George IV, including the addition of “decorative flowering trees and scented shrubs.”

Vanity Fair reports that part of the Royal Collection Trust’s motivation to open the gardens may be financial. As the magazine explains, the coronavirus pandemic has cut into royal palaces’ revenue, which usually comes from tourists and visitors.

“We sadly haven’t been able to open the state rooms this year because of the current situation as we might ordinarily have done and therefore it’s wonderful to be able to open the garden instead,” said Sally Goodsir, the Royal Collection’s curator of decorative arts, in an interview with the Manchester Evening News.

This is the first time that the gardens have opened to public picnics since 2012’s Big Lunch initiative, which celebrated the Diamond Jubilee. 

Tricia Ellis, a tour guide in London, told The Post, “I just think it’s a lovely, lovely occasion, a chance to get to see something that you normally wouldn’t see in a beautiful time of year."

Would you have a picnic at Buckingham Palace? Have you ever visited before? Let us know — and be sure to pass this news on to friends and family members.