The Buckingham Palace and St James's Park Virtual Tour

You're invited to Buckingham Palace from the comfort of your own home, so let me be your butler and guide!

There’s so much history and so many stories about Buckingham Palace and its surrounds, so join us on a fascinating one and a half hour virtual tour.

300 years ago the palace started off as a townhouse for a Duke, nearly became a museum but went on to be the London residence of all of Britain's sovereigns since an 18 year old Queen Victoria moved in 1837.

Using pictures, old paintings and Google earth, we’ll look at how the building has grown over the years and take 360 degree views of its most important rooms (there’s not enough time for all 775 of them!).

We’ll find out about all about the preparations needed for a royal banquet, visit the drawing room with a secret door, learn of rumours of a secret tunnel and virtually visit the gallery that has largest collection of Canalettos in the world.

Then we’ll take a virtual stroll down the Mall, and around St James’s Park to hear stories about Henry VIII’s jousting ground, of pelicans and ducks, how the Stuarts made it in to a pleasure park and curious facts like how the British taught the French to bottle champagne (and what has that got to do with Duck Island?), the pagoda that burnt down and who exactly was the grand old duke of York (in fact he wasn’t all that grand at all).

N B: Tour may be cancelled if low volume of sign ups. You will be given a full refund.

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All our tours are given by London tour guide and TV historian Loona Hazarika who's advised and appeared on TV history series Sky Atlantic’s Urban Secrets, and BBC TV’s The Repair Shop and The Hairy Builder. A former official tour guide at the British Museum, he holds a masters degree from the University of Cambridge.

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REVIEWS:

“I was very pleasantly surprised at the professionalism, knowledge, delivery and attention to detail displayed. It was exceptionally well presented and most informative and was one of the most professionally delivered on line lectures that I have attended …and I look forward to attending future tours by Loona.” Martin Nicholls

“A first class tour guide, an excellent group facilitator and a charming person. He is inspiring, enthusiastic and with endless historical knowledge – which makes me hungry for more. We covered past history (oh so colourful…talking about the inspiration and resilience of people) and right up to the present day….Loona had a story for everything.I won’t spoil it for you by sharing too much ..just to say it really gave me an insight and food for thought.” Sue Goldstein

“From my experience Loona’s tours are head and shoulders above other tours. I will definitely be going on more tours with him and am going to enquire about a tailor made tour with him too.” Julie Bennett, tour guide

For our other tours and reviews please see www.letsdiscoverlondon.com and to stay in touch with our latest tours don't forget to sign up for my newsletter here

https://letsdiscoverlondon.com/stay-in-touch/

Virtual Tour details:

Time: 1hr 30 minutes approx.

Via Zoom

How to join the virtual tour:

Book your tickets here.

I'll email details of the Zoom meeting link, password and Meeting ID on the morning of the tour.

Don't forget to check your spam folder in case the email gets stuck there.

Five minutes before start time, click on the link and then sit back and enjoy the tour.

Please put your microphone on mute, but you will be able to unmute and ask questions at the end of every stop.

For more of our tours please visit our website Let's Discover London.

This is me, I'm a passionate historical info-tainer and history geek!

This is me at work on the BBC