Page 214 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - London

212  L ONDON AREA B Y AREA

Statue of young Queen Victoria, by her daughter Princess Louise, outside Kensington Palace
9 Serpentine open to the public. When q Kensington
Gallery William III and his wife Mary Gardens
came to the throne in 1689, they
Kensington Gdns and West Carriage bought a mansion, dating from W8. Map 10 E4. Tel 0300 061 2000.
Drive, W2. Map 11 A4. Tel 020 7402 1605, and commissioned 1 Bayswater, High St Kensington,
6075. 1 Lancaster Gate, South Christopher Wren to convert it Queensway, Lancaster Gate.
Kensington. Open 10am–6pm Tue– into a royal palace. He created Open 6am–dusk daily. -
Sun. Closed 1 Jan, 24–26, 31 Dec & ∑ royalparks.org.uk
between exhibitions. Lectures. 7 separate suites of rooms for the
0 = art bookshop. king and queen. The former grounds of
∑ serpentinegalleries.org The palace has seen some Kensington Palace became a
important royal events. In 1714, public park in 1841. A small
The Serpentine Gallery houses Queen Anne died here from a fit part of it has been dedicated
temporary exhibitions of major of apoplexy brought on by over- as a memorial playground to
and emerging contemporary eating and, on 20 June 1837, Diana, Princess of Wales (see
artists’ and architects’ work. This Princess Victoria of Kent was p223). The gardens are full of
exciting gallery transforms its woken at 5am to be told that her charm, starting with Sir George
space to suit the exhibits. Every uncle William IV had died and Frampton’s statue (1912) of
summer, a temporary pavilion she was now queen – the start J M Barrie’s fictional Peter Pan,
(open daily) is commissioned of her 64-year reign. After the the boy who never grew up,
from a major architect. A second death in 1997 of Diana, Princess playing his pipes for the bronze
building, the Serpentine Sackler of Wales, the gold gates south of fairies and animals that cling
Gallery, in a former gunpowder the palace became a focal point to the column below. Often
store a 5-minute walk from the for mourners in their thousands, surrounded by parents, nannies
main space, displays similarly who turned the surrounding and their charges, the statue
ambitious exhibits. An extension, area into a field of bouquets. stands near the west bank of
designed by Zaha Hadid, houses Visitors can explore inside the the Serpentine, not far from
the Magazine restaurant. King’s and Queen’s state where Harriet, wife of the
apartments, the latter little poet Percy Bysshe Shelley,
0 Kensington changed since it was drowned herself in 1816.
designed for Mary in the
Just north of here, in Hyde
Palace 17th century. The King’s Park, are the ornamental
Staircase is particularly fountains and statues,
Kensington Palace Gdns W8. Map 10
D4. Tel 0844 482 7777. 1 High St impressive, lavishly including Jacob Epstein’s
Kensington, Queensway, Notting Hill painted for George I by Rima, at the lake’s head.
Gate. Open Mar–Oct: 10am–6pm William Kent. Another George Frederick
daily; Nov–Feb: 10am–4pm daily; (last exhibit examines the Watts’ statue of a
adm: 1 hr earlier). Closed 24–26 Dec. life of Queen Victoria. muscular horse and
& 9 0 = 7 Exhibitions. The palace also rider, Physical Energy,
∑ hrp.org.uk often displays stands to the south.
clothes worn by Not far away is a
Half of this spacious palace many of the summer house
is used as royal apartments; royals, including designed by
the other half, which includes the the Queen and Detail of the Coalbrookdale gate, William Kent in
18th-century state rooms, is Princess Diana. Kensington Gardens 1735, and the

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