Buckingham Palace

John Nash made the house twice as big. He used a warm, pale stone called Bath stone.

Later, a new front was added. Smoke from the city made it dark, so it was covered with new pale stone. That took only 13 weeks!

John Nash kept the main block of Buckingham House but doubled its size with new rooms on the garden side, faced with mellow Bath stone. He rebuilt the two wings and put a triumphal arch, the Marble Arch, in the middle of the courtyard.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert needed more space for their growing family, so in 1847 to 1849 Edward Blore added a fourth wing, the East Wing, closing the courtyard. The Marble Arch was moved to Hyde Park. London's soot damaged the East Wing's soft stone, so in 1913 the front was refaced in harder Portland stone, a job finished in just 13 weeks.

Nash retained the main block but doubled it with a new garden-front suite of rooms facing west, faced in Bath stone in a French neoclassical manner; these State and semi-State Rooms remain virtually unchanged. He demolished and rebuilt the north and south wings around an enlarged forecourt with a triumphal arch at its center, celebrating Trafalgar and Waterloo.

To provide nurseries and guest rooms, Blore's East Wing (1847 to 1849) enclosed the forecourt into a quadrangle, funded largely by the sale of George IV's Royal Pavilion at Brighton; the arch was moved to the north-east corner of Hyde Park. Blore's soft French (Caen) stone deteriorated in London's soot, so in 1913 Sir Aston Webb redesigned the front in Portland stone. The stone took 12 months to prepare, the refacing itself 13 weeks, and the work was completed in 1914.

Buckingham Palace is a home and an office.

The King meets visitors from all over the world there. In summer, people can buy tickets to see inside some of the rooms.

Buckingham Palace is a working building. The King meets the Prime Minister there each week, welcomes ambassadors and leaders from other countries, and gives awards to people who have done important work. More than 50,000 people visit each year as guests at banquets, receptions and garden parties.

In front of the palace is the forecourt, where Changing the Guard takes place, and outside the gates stands the white Victoria Memorial, unveiled in 1911. Each summer, the State Rooms open to visitors.

The royal household counts more than 50,000 guests a year at state banquets, lunches, dinners, receptions and garden parties. The offices supporting the King and Queen, including the Private Secretary's Office and the Privy Purse and Treasurer's Office, are based there, and notices of royal births and deaths are still fixed to the front railings.

The forecourt where Changing the Guard takes place, with its gates and railings, was formed in 1911 as part of the Victoria Memorial scheme, conceived by Edward VII and unveiled on 16 May 1911. The State Rooms open to visitors in summer and for a limited number of tours at other times of year. In 1962, on Prince Philip's initiative, a gallery was created from the bombed ruins of the former private chapel; it became The King's Gallery in 2024.