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George
III bought Buckingham House in 1761 for his wife
Queen Charlotte to use as a comfortable family home
close to St James's Palace, where many court functions
were held. Buckingham House became known as the
Queen's House, and 14 of George III's 15 children
were born there. In 1762 work began on remodelling
the house to the King's requirements, to designs
by Sir William Chambers, at a cost of £73,000.
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| Buckingham
House, the garden front: detail from an oil
painting attributed to Adrian van Diest (c.
1700) depicting the house as it was in the Duke
of Buckingham's time |
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| George
IV, on his accession in 1820, decided to reconstruct
the house into a pied-à-terre, using it for the same
purpose as his father George III. However, as work
progressed, and as late as the end of 1826, the King
had a change of heart and with the assistance of his
architect, John Nash, he set about transforming the
house into a palace. Parliament agreed to a budget
of £150,000, but the King pressed for £450,000 as
a more realistic figure. Nash retained the main block
but doubled its size by adding a new suite of rooms
on the garden side facing west. Faced with mellow
Bath stone, the external style reflected the French
neo-classical influence favoured by George IV. The
remodelled rooms are the State and semi-State Rooms,
which remain virtually unchanged since Nash's time. |
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| Watercolour
of Buckingham Palace by Joseph Nash, 1846, showing
the entrance side of the Palace before the closing
of the quadrangle with a new front wing and
the removal of the Marble Arch |
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| Many
of the pieces of furniture and works of art in these
rooms were bought or made for Carlton House (George
IV's London base when he was Prince of Wales), which
was demolished in 1827. The north and south wings
of Buckingham House were demolished and rebuilt on
a larger scale with a triumphal arch - the Marble
Arch - as the centrepiece of an enlarged courtyard,
to commemorate the British victories at Trafalgar
and Waterloo. By 1829 the costs had escalated to nearly
half a million pounds. Nash's extravagance cost him
his job, and on the death of George IV in 1830, his
younger brother William IV took on Edward Blore to
finish the work. The King never moved into the Palace.
Indeed, when the Houses of Parliament were destroyed
by fire in 1834, the King offered the Palace as a
new home for Parliament, but the offer was declined.
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