Buckingham Palace, Royal palace in City of Westminster, United Kingdom.
Buckingham Palace is a neoclassical building of pale stone, its central block projecting with four attached columns above three arched doorways. The facade has three main storeys, a roofline balustrade and pediments over the central and end sections, with a flagpole on the roof. The east front was clad in Portland stone in 1913 to form the backdrop to the Victoria Memorial.
Buckingham House was built in 1703 for John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby, to William Winde's design. George III bought it in 1761 as a private residence for Queen Charlotte, and 14 of their 15 children were born there. From 1826 John Nash enlarged it for George IV into a palace with three wings around a courtyard, with the Marble Arch as state entrance; Edward Blore completed the work after Nash's dismissal, and the arch was later moved to Hyde Park. The east front was clad in Portland stone in 1913 as a backdrop to the Victoria Memorial.
Foreign ambassadors are accredited to the Court of St James's, though they present their credentials to the monarch at Buckingham Palace. The east front balcony is where the royal family appears to greet crowds on state occasions. The state rooms open to visitors for most of the summer and on selected days in winter and spring.
Opening hours for State Room visits run from late July through early October, with advance booking required through the Royal Collection Trust website. Audio guides come in 11 languages at no extra charge. Arrive 15 minutes before your time slot at the Visitor Entrance on Buckingham Palace Road. The Changing of the Guard occurs at 11 AM on scheduled days, viewable from outside the railings without a ticket.
The Marble Arch, a triumphal arch modelled on the Arch of Constantine in Rome, cost £34,450 and served as the state entrance before being dismantled and re-erected near Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park. George IV planned to crown it with a bronze equestrian statue of himself, but died before the work was finished; Parliament placed the statue in Trafalgar Square instead.
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