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Aerial View of Kensington Palace
http://www.history.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/aerial-view.jpgThe history of Kensington Palace, one of the British family’s royal residences in London, dates back to the early 17th century. Heneage Finch, Earl of Nottingham, built the original structure, known as Nottingham House, in what was then the suburban village of Kensington in 1605. (Credit: Getty Images)
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King William III
http://www.history.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/king-william-iii.jpgIn 1689, King William III and his wife, Queen Mary II, purchased Nottingham House from the Earl of Nottingham’s heir. The king suffered from chronic asthma and wanted to escape the grime and dampness of Whitehall Palace, which stood along the banks of the Thames in central London.
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Christopher Wren
http://www.history.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/christopher-wren.jpgThe royal couple hired the famous architect Christopher Wren to transform the Jacobean mansion into a residence fit for reigning monarchs. He reoriented the house, flanked it with pavilions, designed a new entrance and added a number of additional features, including a clock tower, a chapel, a council chamber and grand staircases.
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Queen Anne
http://www.history.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/queen-anne.jpgBoth William and Mary died at Kensington Palace, the queen of smallpox in 1694 and the king in 1702 after falling off his horse. His successor, Queen Anne, spent substantial parts of her reign living at Kensington Palace, where she died from what may have been gout in 1714.
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The Palace’s Private Formal Gardens
http://www.history.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/private-formal-gardens.jpgAnne commissioned her royal gardeners Henry Wise and Charles Bridgman to extend and improve the gardens surrounding Kensington Palace. Some of their landscaping is still recognizable today in Kensington Gardens, now a public park that surrounds the palace and is adjacent to Hyde Park. (Credit: Getty Images)
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King George I
http://www.history.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/king-george-i.jpgThe accession of George I in 1714 was celebrated at Kensington Palace with a bonfire in the garden; this became a yearly tradition throughout his reign. Two years later it became clear that the royal residence was in a state of disrepair. The king launched an extensive rebuilding project, which resulted in the addition of three lavish state rooms. The legendary designer and painter William Kent, who was relatively unknown at the time, contributed to the renovations.
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The Cupola Room
http://www.history.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/cupola-room.jpgOne of the new public spaces added during George I’s realm and decorated by William Kent was the Cupola Room. The future Queen Victoria would be christened there in a private ceremony in June 1819.
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Peter the Wild Boy
http://www.history.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/peter-wild-boy.jpgKing George I’s Kensington Palace household was graced with an unlikely presence in 1726. A naked and silent teenage boy was found in a German forest, given the name Peter and introduced to the courts of England as a sort of celebrity. A portrait of the boy by William Kent still hangs in Kensington Palace alongside those of other court figures. He was entrusted to the care of a yeoman farmer after George I’s death in 1727. According to one account, at the age of 70 Peter remained in good health but could still only pronounce two words: “Peter” and “King George.”
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King George II
http://www.history.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/king-george-ii.jpgGeorge I’s son and successor, George II, who ascended the throne in 1727, was the last reigning British monarch to use Kensington Palace as one of his official homes. Unlike his predecessors, he made few changes to the royal residence, where he died in 1760.
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Queen Victoria
http://www.history.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/queen-victoria.jpgGeorge II’s successor, George III, did not live at Kensington Palace, but his fourth son, Edward, Duke of Kent, was allocated royal apartments there in 1798. He made substantial repairs to the dilapidated lower floors before moving to Brussels to escape his debts. In 1818 he married and brought his new wife to live in Kensington Palace, where she gave birth to Princess Alexandrina Victoria of Kent on May 24, 1819. Edward died soon after, and his daughter, the future Queen Victoria, was raised in isolation and under strict supervision at Kensington Palace.
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Queen Victoria Receives the News of Her Succession
http://www.history.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/queen-victoria-receives-news.jpgFifth in line to the throne at the time of her birth, Victoria became heiress presumptive to her newly crowned uncle, King William IV, after the death of his older brother King George IV in 1830. On June 20, 1837, the 18-year-old princess was awoken early in the morning and informed in her Kensington Palace sitting room that she was now queen.
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Mary of Teck
http://www.history.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/mary-of-teck.jpgQueen Victoria moved into Buckingham Palace, and Kensington Palace became home to a series of minor royals. In 1867, Princess Mary of Teck, the future wife of King George V and grandmother of the reigning monarch Queen Elizabeth II, was born there. One of her sons, Edward VIII, later referred to the palace as the “aunt heap” because so many of his royal relatives lived in it. By the late 19th century, rumors began circulating that the half-empty, decaying Kensington Palace would be demolished or transformed into a museum. Queen Victoria convinced Parliament to restore her childhood home, maintain it as a royal residence and transform part of it into a public exhibition space.
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Princess Margaret and Her Family in 1964
http://www.history.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/princess-margaret-and-family.jpgOne of Kensington Palace’s most famous 20th-century residents was Princess Margaret, Elizabeth II’s younger sister, who lived there for nearly 42 years until her death in 2002. For part of that time, her household included her then-husband, Anthony Armstrong-Jones, and their two children, David and Sarah. (Credit: Getty Images)
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The Prince and Princess of Wales at Kensington Palace with Prince William in 1983
http://www.history.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/prince-and-princess-of-wales-william.jpgIn 1981, the queen’s son and heir apparent Prince Charles moved into a double apartment on the north side of Kensington Palace with his new bride, Princess Diana. The couple’s two sons, Prince William and Prince Henry, were raised in the palace, which remained Diana’s official residence even after her separation from Charles in the early 1990s and their divorce in 1996. (Credit: Getty Images)
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Flowers and Other Public Offerings Outside Kensington Palace After Diana’s Death
http://www.history.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/diana-tribute.jpgIn 1997, the area outside the gates of Kensington Palace became a temporary memorial to the beloved and iconic Diana, who was killed in a car crash in Paris on August 31. On September 7, the princess’ coffin left Kensington Palace for Westminster Abbey, where 2,000 people attended her funeral. (Credit: Getty Images)
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Prince and Princess Michael of Kent
http://www.history.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/prince-and-princess-of-kent.jpgIn 2008, members of Parliament were appalled when they discovered that the queen’s cousin, Prince Michael of Kent, had been living nearly rent-free in Kensington Palace since his marriage in 1978. He is now required to pay nearly $200,000 a year for the privilege. Other members of the royal family currently living in the palace include the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and the Duke and Duchess of Kent. (Credit: Getty Images)
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The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge
http://www.history.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/duke-and-duchess-cambridge.jpgIn June 2011, Kensington Palace was designated the official residence of Prince William and his new wife, the former Kate Middleton. According to reports, they plan to move into their apartment in June or July. For the prince, who is second in line to the throne after his father Charles, this will be a return to his childhood home, a place with deep associations to his late mother, Diana. (Credit: Getty Images)
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