The garden at Buckingham Palace is probably one of the best-known ’secret gardens’ in the world. Its name is recognised as the venue for The Queen’s summer garden parties and, at 16 hectares (40 acres), it is one of the largest private gardens in London. As part of the Summer Opening of Buckingham Palace the garden has been seen by millions of visitors from around the globe. Yet despite this, its centuries-long history and its year-round character remain almost unknown.

The garden at Buckingham Palace is probably one of the best-known ’secret gardens’ in the world. Its name is recognised as the venue for The Queen’s summer garden parties and, at 16 hectares (40 acres), it is one of the largest private gardens in London. As part of the Summer Opening of Buckingham Palace the garden has been seen by millions of visitors from around the globe. Yet despite this, its centuries-long history and its year-round character remain almost unknown.

In The Garden at Buckingham Palace: An Illustrated History, renowned garden historian Jane Brown presents the story of the garden, from its beginnings as a seventeenth-century mulberry plantation to the role it plays in the private and public life of the Royal Family today. Drawing on previously unpublished material in the Royal Archives, this book uses contemporary maps and plans - together with drawings, paintings and photographs from the Royal Collection - to illustrate the changing appearance of the garden, from formal plantation to eighteenthcentury landscape, from Victorian shrubbery to the ’oasis in the middle of London’ that it is today, with its 350 species of wild flowers and exceptional variety of bird and animal life.

The photographs by Christopher Simon Sykes record a year in the life of the garden, from snowy winter mornings to the garden in springtime, from the extraordinary blaze of colour achieved for the summer garden parties to the autumn tints of its two hundred types of trees.

FOREWORD BY HRH THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH 

INTRODUCTION 

1. AN ACCIDENT OF DESIGN 

Henry VIII to William IV

2. PRECIOUS PRIVACY 

George III to King George VI

3. THE HOUSE AT THE TOP OF THE MALL 

The front garden

4. THE GARDENERS’ GARDEN 

From the 1830s to the present day

5. PARTY GARDEN 

George IH and Queen Cbarlotte to Queen Elizabetb II

NOTES AND FURTHER READING 

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

COMMEMORATiVe TREES  

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS  

INDEX