Kensington Palace State Apartments

First used for royal residence in 1689 by Christopher Wren. There is a royal ceremonial dress collection here. It starts from 18^th century to present day. this is where one can explore the replica dressmakers workroom plus the tailors shop! The staterooms were added by William III and Mary II. William Kents work can be viewed as well.
Peter the wild boy can be seen as you climb the very impressive staircase. Look around series of staterooms especially Cupola room where Victoria was christened.
There is a café which is the Orangery, where court entertainments would have taken place. And dicover the magical sunken garden.
The Victoria rooms are elegant and intimate. This is where Queen Victoria would relax. They were also used by her mother the Duchess of Kent. And the bedroom was where on 20 June 1837 Victoria awoke to find herself the new monarch.
No’1 a was recently opened to the general public. The last user was HRH Princess Margaret.

Apart from the Tower of london, Kensington Palace is the only royal palace I’ve been to. Though I wouldn’t call it a disappointment, it wasn’t quite what I had expected. It’s far smaller than the other palaces (judging by the exteriors — I’ve passed both Buckingham and Hampton Court palaces though never been inside) and looks more like a large house than a palace. As I went through the tour, I learnt that this is because it was never intended to be a showy palace — rather it was meant to be an intimate, private residence for King William and Queen Mary and their family. Seen in that light, it’s quite an interesting place since it’s far more like the homes of most Londoners than I would have expected a palace to be. The rooms are quite small — indeed it gave me quite a kick that Queen Mary’s drawing room is smaller than mine! Then again she had about 50 rooms. There was no guided tour when I visited and I don’t think there normally is one. However, an audio guide comes included in the ticket price and it is quite informative. As soon as you enter there are some interesting displays about court dress and tailoring. After that, there is an enormous tribute to Diana — but it felt strangely context-​less as there were no indications about whether Diana actually lived in the palace and if so, where her rooms were. There were just enormous projections of her photographs and a small display of her dresses. Interesting for Diana-​fans but I would have preferred less visuals and more information.
The tour of Apartment 1A, which used to belong to Princess Margaret was very well done and very interesting. I had known nothing about her before going in and I came out fascinated by the fact that she was practically a precursor of Diana in her role as fashion icon and Royal rebel. I’ve always thought of Diana as a pathbreaker but she wasn’t really in many ways though of course the fact that she married into the Royal family rather than being born into it does make a difference.
The tour of the state apartments was also interesting and it was fascinating to see the actual bed Queen Victoria slept in.
The Orangery was nice as well though I suspect a cold winter’s evening does not show it off in the best light. I’ll probably come back in summer to see what it’s like then.
To summarise, this is a nice place to go for a day out though neither as impressive nor as interesting as the Tower of London.

I was curiously disappointed by a visit to Kensington Palace. I’ve wanted to go for years and this year I’ve got a season ticket to all the Historic Royal Palaces and so I finally made it inside.
I’m a historian and my special interest is the early modern period so I was on a mission to find William and Mary in their country retreat. They’re there but to get to them you need to go through a HUGE tribute to Princess Diana. If you love Diana, you’ll love this! Giant video screens show scenes from her life. Her dresses are there to be admired. But it’s all rather overpowering.
The rest of the state apartments are more subdued and almost a little depressing. Until the 17^th century bit, of course! (For me anyway!) I’d go back just for that now that I know my way around. There is also an interesting display of court dress for costume fans.
The views over Kensington Gardens are lovely and is the view of the Palace from them.
The shop seemed well equipped with the usual Royal Palaces range but was about to be closed for a stock take when I went through. Presumeably this is not a frequent event!
Overall maybe I wasn’t in the right mood. I may go and visit again and will do an update if I do.