Buckingham revisited

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The diamond jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation has created a rare chance for people to enjoy the famous gardens at the Buckingham Palace as they will be opened to the public for four days in July.

Not accessible normally, the gardens will be the venue for the four-day Coronation Festival, which will include exhibits by over 200 companies who hold royal warrants of appointment and a celebration of music and dance. Tata Sons-owned Jaguar Land Rover is one of the main sponsors of the event.
The festival, being held from July 11, will give people a rare chance to enjoy the famous garden that is home to over 350 different species of wild flowers. So rare is the chance to visit the gardens that luxury picnic hampers on offer for the festival have been sold out.
Buckingham Palace’s state rooms are opened to the public for eight weeks in August and September annually when the queen and her family leave the palace to stay in the Balmoral Castle in Scotland and during this period, a part of the garden is accessible to the public.
The queen’s annual summer garden parties, held in the Buckingham Palace, too provide a chance to explore some part of the 42-acre garden whose highlights include the herbaceous border, the wisteria-clad summer house, the rose garden, the Waterloo Vase, a 20-tonne garden ornament, and the 19th century lake.
Eighty-seven-year-old Queen Elizabeth was formally crowned in Westminster Abbey on June 2, 1953, almost 18 months after she became the queen in February 1952. A special exhibition has been organised in the Buckingham Palace for the event.
The exhibition, which highlights the dresses, uniform and robes worn by the principal royal party, works of art, paintings and objects used on the day and photographs is also being organised in the Buckingham Palace for the summer opening.
Queen’s favourite designer till his death, Norman Hartnell (1901-79), designed her coronation dress and robe, the dresses worn by all the principal ladies of the immediate royal family. The exhibition includes sketches of Hartnell’s design for the coronation dress.
The Royal Collection has also launched a limited edition of commemorative china to mark the diamond jubilee of the coronation. The range includes nine-inch dessert plate (£95), an 11-inch charger (£175), a tea caddy (£225), a pill box (£95) and a large loving cup (£195). Only 750-1,000 pieces of limited collection have been manufactured.
“Each piece is decorated and embellished with several layers of raised burnished gold, after which a final layer of 22-carat gold is applied,” Royal Collection Trust said, adding that each piece is hand-made using 250-year-old techniques.