Royal Apartment

Buckingham Palace

HM The Queen hasn't got an exagerately large apartment, for example Her private study is also Her sitting room.
This room can be easily recongnised from the outside becouse it is the only one to have a bow window.

The red portion indicates where Princess Margaret lived. The yellow area was occupied by Princess Marina and then the Gloucesters.  The red AND yellow portions belonged to Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll before the Second World War.

The blue part was formerly the home of Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone.

The pink apartments were used by The Duke and Duchess (Mary Cambridge, neé of Teck) of Beaufort.

The Prince and Princess of Wales had Apartments 8 and 9 in purple.

The Michael of Kents reside in the green area of Apartment 10.  This was Princess Margaret's first married home before moving to the other side of the palace and it was also the residence of the Marquess and Marchioness of Carisbrooke.

The LOWER floors only marked in grey was the home of Princess Beatrice, the Princess Henry of Battenberg.

In "A royal duty" Paul Burrell says that the app. n° 7 belonged to the Claytons far relatives of the RF. Is it true?
He also added that these rooms were occupied by Prince Philip before his marriage.

Then he says that the app. n° 6 was occupied by an important royal servant.

Princess Michael of Kent's sitting room.

Is it true that the Duke of Kent and his wife live somewhere else and not in London?

In "A royal duty" Paul Burrell says that the app. n° 7 belonged to the Claytons far relatives of the RF. Is it true?
He also added that these rooms were occupied by Prince Philip before his marriage.

Then he says that the app. n° 6 was occupied by an important royal servant.

Gleb, the entrance to the apartment  occupied by the Dowager Marchioness of Milford Haven was on the ground floor in a portion of the palace coloured purple. (The Wales' had rooms above that entrance.)   The Marchioness' rooms extended along the range of the western part of Prince of Wales Court on the first floor and attic rooms. A couple of the rooms in the attic shown in purple above the Wales' first floor apartments also were used by Lady Milford Haven.

The Claytons are Bowes Lyon relatives.


Butler Harold Brown occupied  Apartment 6 which is on the ground floor between the rooms used by The Athlones and the Beauforts.

Leuchtenberg, thanks so much for the layout and description of the occupants of the various apartments.  I didn't realize the wing "around the corner" from the Stone Gallery range belonged to the Glouchesters, and wasn't part of Margaret's apartments.   You're clearly well informed on Kensington - any other tid-bids you can share on this - or any other - palace?

However, I'm confused about the Michael Kent's home.  According to official transcripts from Parliament (see earlier post in this thread - and also quoted again below - the Michael Kent's have one of the largest apartments in the palace (in terms of number of rooms).  The transcript says Prince and Princess Michael of Kent have 7 principal bedrooms and 9 principal reception rooms, plus 1 staff bedroom, 2 staff bathrooms, 1 staff reception room, 1 kitchen and 2 utility rooms at Kensington.  The floor plan shown in green doesn't seem to have enough room to contain all those rooms - are they spread out in other locations or perhaps on multiple floors?

PS - Princess Michael's sitting room is awful IMO - clutter, clutter, clutter.....

Leuchtenberg, thanks so much for the layout and description of the occupants of the various apartments.  I didn't realize the wing "around the corner" from the Stone Gallery range belonged to the Glouchesters, and wasn't part of Margaret's apartments.   You're clearly well informed on Kensington - any other tid-bids you can share on this - or any other - palace?

However, I'm confused about the Michael Kent's home.  According to official transcripts from Parliament (see earlier post in this thread - and also quoted again below - the Michael Kent's have one of the largest apartments in the palace (in terms of number of rooms).  The transcript says Prince and Princess Michael of Kent have 7 principal bedrooms and 9 principal reception rooms, plus 1 staff bedroom, 2 staff bathrooms, 1 staff reception room, 1 kitchen and 2 utility rooms at Kensington.  The floor plan shown in green doesn't seem to have enough room to contain all those rooms - are they spread out in other locations or perhaps on multiple floors?

The Kent apartment is spread out on four floors, including the basement.  The Parliamentary report detailing the amount of rooms is very inflated.  There is no way that there are 9 receptions rooms, unless they are taking into account wide corridors, a ramshackle sunroom built facing onto Princess' Court, and the secretary's room, etc.  It would be more accurate to say that there are 3 or 4 receptions rooms and that is it.  The amount of bedrooms is also out of whack.  There are I believe 4 family bedrooms and two for staff.

Princess Margaret's home in Clock Court, known as No. 1A is much larger than the Kent home.  The reason the Princess moved out of No. 10 (Michael of Kent residence) was because it was too small.

The entire apartment No. 1 was the residence of Princess Louise since her return from Canada where Lord Lorne was Governor General, until her death.  It comprised some 70 rooms including passageways and staff quarters.  After WWII, a portion of the apartment was offered to Princess Marina as her London base.  The reason that section of apartment 1 was selected is because it sustained the least amount of damage during the war and was thus cheaper to restore and Marina certainly did not need the entire apartment.

Following Princess Marina's death and before occupancy by the Gloucesters, a small part of the residence was divided into yet another Grace and Favour home used for members of the Royal Household.

Princess Marina's apartment actually has/had more rooms than the apartment next door where Princess Margaret lived, but Margaret's apartment was larger as in having more floor space, but fewer rooms.

It was the same thing as Clock House, the home of the Athlones....there were more rooms than Margaret's house, but much less space.  After Princess Alice's death, Princess Michael had her eye on Clock House as it is more spacious than No. 10, but either The Queen herself or her household refused to allow it.  Clock House had been earmarked as a future home to either Prince Andrew or Prince Edward.

Kensington Palace is kind of an odd thing the way it is divided.  None of the individual homes is clearly defined on the plan above.  One would assume that the space on each floor would belong to the same tenant when actually a room or two or a corridor takes a portion for another apartment while perhaps on the floor above the exact same space belongs to the same resident two floors below.

The actual amount of rooms alloted to each resident does change over their tenure.  When the Athlones returned to Clock House after the Second World War, Princess Alice was annoyed to discover that a couple of rooms that formerly belonged to her were now assigned as part of another apartment.  A simple of matter of sealing a door on one side of a room and opening or installing a door on the opposite side of the room.

I read that Mr. & Mrs. Timothy Laurence privately purchased an apartment/flat in Dolphin Square for their London home?  Does anyone know if this is true?

Where in London is Dolphin Square?

TampaBay

There was an announcement made shortly after their marraige about them living in their own flat in London, but nothing ever came of it. It may just have been a public relations move by the Household.  Besides, security would have been a nightmare.  

It was my understanding that the apartment in Dolphin Square was given up, and that Anne's rooms at Buckingham Palace became her London base once again.

So if Princess Margaret used to live in app 1A, do the Gloucester live in app 1B?
If I have understood, it was the same app, which was simply subdivided into two ones, am I right?

Besides what about Princess Toria? I know she was given an app. in Kensington too.

Fascinating information on the private side of Kensington Palace!  I've been hunting for that kind of detail ever since I got the official guidebook a year or two ago.  

Switching to Windsor - do you possess any inside scoop on the castle?  I have a floor plan of the castle's principal floor dating to around 1840, and while I know the locations of all the state rooms - the private rooms are naturally not labeled.  I've managed to figure out the location of the White Drawing Room and Queen's Bedroom, and the likely locale of the Duke of Edinburgh's apartments in what is named the Queen's Tower, but the rest of the apartments are a mystery.

I caught a programme on TV the other day - part of the recent series on the castle's behind-the-scenes.  This particular episode detailed the preparations for the French State Visit a year or so ago - the one where Les Miserables was performed in the Waterloo....er, I mean "Music" Chamber.  One segment showed maids preparing the apartments which were to be occupied by the French President and his wife.  They showed the view out the window directly down the Long Walk - indicating that this is the apartment in the center of the castle's Park-side wing.

Over to you - any tidbids on Windsor?

It was the same thing as Clock House, the home of the Athlones....there were more rooms than Margaret's house, but much less space.  After Princess Alice's death, Princess Michael had her eye on Clock House as it is more spacious than No. 10, but either The Queen herself or her household refused to allow it.  Clock House had been earmarked as a future home to either Prince Andrew or Prince Edward.

Clock House is where Elizabeth and Philip lived for a while soon after they were married, while the Athlones were in Canada, right?

PS - Princess Michael's sitting room is awful IMO - clutter, clutter, clutter.....

If one got rid of all those unneccessary books on the table, Chris, then it wouldn't really be over-cluttered, though, perhaps you're a minimalist?