Before Queen Charlotte there was Princess Augusta (1719-1772)

In the 1700s knowledge was power. In a world where literacy was still rare, learning was something to be respected, and therefore anyone who needed to be respected had to be able to talk with a perspective of knowledge. A king, of course, then, must have enough knowledge to ensure they could stand out amongst other knowledgable people, so their wealthy and powerful courtiers would serve them out of respect and loyalty.

A king also needed knowledge to ensure they would not be fooled or tricked by others who were hungry for power. There were new challenges in the 1700s too, because the world had opened up for wealthy young men to travel, explore, and see the achievements of the world’s cultures for themselves. This immediately put princes at a disadvantage because travel was still dangerous, and in a volatile time for uprisings it was far more of a risk for the heir to the throne to travel.

King George III’s mother, Princess Augusta, realised this and created a space King George III could experience and learn. She wanted her son to succeed when he became king. The White House that was at the time the palace used at Kew, on the edge of the Thames, then outside London, was where the princes were tutored, so, to enable George’s learning Princess Augusta redesigned the gardens.

Below is the garden she planned for her son with designers and architects who sought to recreate the experiences of the world outside the palace gardens.

The image above, however, does not really express the spectacle of the gardens in the 1700s. Some of the folly buildings have gone, but the tall, dramatic, Chinese style Pagoda on the left in the above image has recently been refurbished, and this alone shows just how much was invested into creating a stunning landscape for young George to explore and expand his understanding of the world outside the palace. The Pagoda is thought to be the tallest building in the country at the time it was built, and George III would have studied and watched how this was built.

The Images below are of the Pagoda as it is now. I hope from these pictures you can see how grand this is and therefore how much the Princess invested into her son’s garden and the development of his knowledge and experience.

To give you an idea of the size of the Pagoda, someone is standing in the circular porch, there is also a video about the restoration available here . (You can click on the images below to view them in full).

When I saw this amazing Pagoda built in a Chinese style in the palace gardens at Kew, I thought of the Chinese inspired interiors of the Royal Pavilion in Brighton. The Royal Pavilion in Brighton was built for George III’s son and heir, Queen Charlotte’s eldest son. The Regent who became King George IV. The Royal Pavilion looks like an Indian Palace on the outside but is dressed like a Chinese palace inside with gold dragons holding up chandeliers and curtains. You can see inside the Royal Pavilion here on the museum website. My mind connected the two buildings because George IV did not get on well with his father and I can imagine him wanting to make something even more impressive than the Pagoda. Or perhaps, as a boy King George IV would have lived amongst his grandmother’s follies too and perhaps he held on to fond memories of the Pagoda from his childhood. King George IV was an obsessive collector of foreign artefacts.

King George III was well known for his interest and knowledge in botany, he was nicknamed ‘the farmer’ because of his involvement in the practical management of his royal land estates. It’s commonly known he returned to Kew when he became mentally ill because Kew palace and its gardens were a comfort to him. He loved Kew, and from this perspective, of an Eden created especially for him by his mother, I can understand why.

The layout of the garden at Kew has changed since the 1700s, but the garden is now The Royal Botanic Gardens, which is a wonderful legacy of Princess Augustus’s desire to teach her son. What she started is still a place of learning that’s now accessible to everyone.

Kew Palace and Gardens – The story of a house that became a palace

The story of a house that became a palace…

In the summer I spent a couple of nights in London, staying near Kew Palace and Gardens, just on the other side of what was once the green of Kew village. I have wanted to visit Kew for years. Even though I don’t write regency romance now I have been fascinated by history since my childhood and I will never rid myself of my amateur historian, the draw of wanting to know how people lived historically, what happened and why will never leave me. I love research and investigating, looking for clues of the things that aren’t generally known. Many of the things I discovered would have once upon a time crept into my regency stories because I do love hiding true aspects and moments within my fiction, and you never know there maybe a time-slip thriller in the future to incorporate some of the things I found out so I will keep some things to myself.

I was very surprised by the size of Kew Palace, the home of King George III and Queen Charlotte (now of Bridgerton storytelling fame). The palace is more like a Manor House in size and nature. Not at all palatial, and yet the park around the house that is now Kew Gardens, is palatial. That is because the main house at Kew that was originnaly used by the Royal family, known as The White House, was rented as a holiday home. A little like the royal family use Balmoral now, the Royal family would spend their summers at Kew escaping London life for the summer season. The White House fell out of use and became derelict, but the property ‘little kew’ continued to be used by the Royal family.

What became Kew Palace, once the land had been purchased by the Royal family, was a much smaller house that had stood in the grounds of The White House. Kew Palace was King George III’s childhood school house, and also where he sent his sons to learn after they were seven years. The following article about the governess King George III and Queen Charlotte employed mentions that from the age of seven a separate household was established for young princes.

As a child, King George III, with his brother, was taught by a tutor in the house for long days from 7 a.m. until 10 p.m. But as heirs to the throne they had to be knowledgable, capable and wise in numerous subjects.

Kew Palace gardens, as with all the older palaces, in or around London, run up to the bank of the Thames. It was the position along the river which probably made the Royal family decide to rent a property in Kew. It was a popular, a fashionable, area for the wealthy from the 1600s. Allowing them to escape the sickness harboured in the narrow London streets. And, of course, in the 1500s and 1600s rivers were like motorways. Rowing boats were the quickest form of travel over longer distances, because narrow and often muddy roads were slower to navigate for carriages and carts and even on horseback. Officials and family could easily travel up the river and then return to the City of London, to Westminster, or continue upriver to Hampton Court Palace or Windsor Castle. and yet be close enough should they need to return to parliament or to undertake business.

You can see in this image below, on the opposite bank, older houses still have their steps leading down to the river where they would have called over one of the many ferrymen who rowed boats on The Thames in river in the same taxis now operate on the roads.

There are some images of historic paintings on this site where you can see just how many boats were on the river on a daily basis even in the 1700s.

I was very lucky when I visited Kew Palace to have a one to one tour of the areas of the building people don’t usually see. The historians know very little about the history of the property, other than it was previously developed as a Silk Merchant’s home in 1631, a man who would have also valued access to the river. This was the house King George II and Queen Caroline rented, they turned it into a more modern property for the time and later purchased the land. It became a palace when it became the property of the crown. But In the attic and the basement you can see hints of the house that became a palace and clues that a house stood here before 1631.

This paint work was found beneath other layers of paint in the attic, in the position where a Tudor staircase must have been removed during the 1700s renovations.

I have seen this approach in somewhere much closer to where I live and in a much more humble abode. The Merchant’s House in Marlborough Hight Street was built after the English Civil War, and when you walk around that house you will see that they painted everything at that time, one room has the walls and even the door painted in a striped pattern that matches the fabric on the chairs.

On the wall there, opposite the staircase, is also a painted stair rail. It is not as glamorous as the one painted in Kew Palace above, though, so perhaps that is a hint that the London silk merchant had more wealth to make a greater impression with.

The image below is of the house in Marlborough, which was also owned by a silk merchant, who did travel to Venice for his silks so he was not poor. He may well have known the London merchant as there would have only been a few trading routes for silk. The staircase leads from the shop up to the drawing room and dinning room above, and then up to the bedrooms. I can only imagine then, if the house at Kew was grander how much grander would it have been, if not a palace, nor to the standard of a stately home then what was the middle ground.

There was a further mystery in the cellar, which I was told was not used for storage during the period the Royal family lived there, and has very unusual architecture that was described as earlier than 1631. Even though historians know a Tudor property was updated in the Georgian period, they have not identified when a well was incorporated into the house and in use. There is no access to the well from the house above. Nor do they know why the arches are so unevenly built, and crossed. They only thing people do know is that an old iron door means there was something or someone owners of the house wanted to keep safe down here.