Royal Mews

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Royal Mews

The Royal Mews is the mews

Mews

Mews is a chiefly British English formerly describing a row of stables, usually with carriage houses below and living quarters above, built around a paved yard or court, or along a street, behind large London houses of the 17th and 18th centuries....
(stable

Stable

File:H?ststall Elfviks g?rd dec 2008.jpgA stable is a building in which livestock, especially horses, are kept. It most commonly means a building that is divided into separate stall s for individual animals....
s and in recent times also the garage

Garage (house)

A residential garage is part of a home, or an associated building, designed or used for storing a vehicle or vehicles. In some places the term is used synonymously with "carport", though that term normally describes a structure that is not completely enclosed....
) of the British Royal Family

British Royal Family

The British Royal Family is the group of close relatives of the Monarchy of the United Kingdom. The term is also commonly applied to the same group of people as the relations of the monarch in his or her Commonwealth realm#The Crown in the Commonwealth realmss, thus sometimes at variance with official national terms for the family....
in London

London

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
. They have occupied two main sites, formerly at Charing Cross

Charing Cross

Charing Cross denotes the junction of the Strand, London, Whitehall and Cockspur Street, just south of Trafalgar Square in City of Westminster within Central London, England....
, and since the 1820s at Buckingham Palace

Buckingham Palace

Buckingham Palace is the official London residence of the British monarch. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is a setting for state occasions and royal entertaining, and a major tourist attraction....
.

first set of stables to be referred to as a mews was at Charing Cross

Charing Cross

Strand, London

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Encyclopedia

The Royal Mews is the mews

Mews

Stable

Garage (house)

British Royal Family

London

Charing Cross

Buckingham Palace

Charing Cross

The first set of stables to be referred to as a mews was at Charing Cross

Charing Cross

Strand, London

The Strand is a street in the City of Westminster, London, England. It currently starts at Trafalgar Square and runs east to join Fleet Street at Temple Bar London, which marks the boundary of the City of London at this point, though its #History has been longer than this....
. The royal hawks were kept at this site from 1377 and the name derives from the fact that they were confined there at moult

Moult

In biology, moulting signifies the manner in which an animal routinely casts off a part of its body , either at specific times of year, or at specific points in its life-cycle....
ing (or “mew”) time.

The building was destroyed by fire in 1534 and rebuilt as a stables, keeping its former name when it acquired this new function. On old maps of Westminster, such as those by Ralph Agas

Ralph Agas

Ralph Agas , English land surveyor, was born at Stoke-by-Nayland, Suffolk, about 1540, and entered upon the practice of his profession in1566....
(also known as Aggas), the Mews can be seen extending back onto the site of today's Leicester Square

Leicester Square

Leicester Square is a pedestrianised city square in the West End of London of London, England. The Square lies within an area bound by Lisle Street, to the north; Charing Cross Road, to the east; Orange Street, to the south; and Whitcomb Street, to the west....
.

This building was usually known as the King's Mews, but was also sometimes referred to as the Royal Mews, the Royal Stables, or as the Queen's Mews when there was a woman on the throne. It was rebuilt again in 1732 to the designs of William Kent

William Kent

William Kent was an eminent England architect, landscape architect and furniture designer of the early 18th century....
, and in the early 19th century it was open to the public. It was an impressive classical building, and there was an open space in front of it which ranked among the larger ones in central London at a time when the Royal Parks were on the fringes of the city and the gardens of London's squares

Sloane Square

Sloane Square is a small hard-landscaped square on the boundaries of the fashionable London districts of Knightsbridge, Belgravia and Chelsea, London, located southwest of Charing Cross....
were open only to the residents of the surrounding houses.

Buckingham Palace

The present Royal Mews is in the grounds of Buckingham Palace, to the south of Buckingham Palace Gardens

Buckingham Palace Gardens

Buckingham Palace Garden or, to give it its full title, "The Garden at Buckingham Palace", is the garden situated at the rear of Buckingham Palace....
, near Grosvenor Place.

In the 1760s George III

George III of the United Kingdom

George III was Kingdom of Great Britain and Kingdom of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of these two countries on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death....
moved some of his day-to-day horses and carriages to the grounds of Buckingham House, which he had acquired in 1762 for his wife's use, but the main royal stables housing the ceremonial coaches and their horses remained at the King's Mews. However when his son George IV

George IV of the United Kingdom

George IV was the king of Kingdom of Hanover and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from the death of his father, George III of the United Kingdom, on 29 January 1820 until his own death ten years later....
had Buckingham Palace converted into the main royal residence in the 1820s the whole stables establishment was moved. The old Mews at Charing Cross was demolished and Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square is a square in central London, England. With its position in the heart of London, it is a tourist attraction; its trademark is Nelson's Column which stands in the centre and the four lion statues that guard the column....
was built on the site. The current Royal Mews was built to designs by John Nash

John Nash (architect)

John Nash was an Anglo-Welsh architect responsible for much of the layout of English Regency London.Born in Lambeth, London as the son of a Wales millwright, Nash trained with architect Sir Robert Taylor , but his own career was initially unsuccessful and short-lived....
and were completed in 1825. They have been modified extensively since.

The Royal Mews is open to the public on certain days. The Gold State Coach

Gold State Coach

The Gold State Coach is an enclosed, eight horse-drawn carriage used by the British Royal Family. It was built in Dublin in 1762 and has been used at every coronation of the British monarch since George IV of the United Kingdom....
and other carriages are kept there, along with about 30 horses.

There is also a Royal Mews overlooking Hampton Court Green near Hampton Court, but it is not open to the public. The old stables of St James's Palace, which stood where Lancaster House

Lancaster House

Lancaster House is a mansion in the St. James's district in the West End of London of London. It is close to St. James's Palace and much of the site was once part of the palace complex....
is now, were also sometime referred to as the Royal Mews.

External links

Official web site of the British Monarchy.
The Monarchy Today > Ceremony and symbol > Transport > Carriages.