Historic Royal Palaces is an independent charity created in 1998 to manage Britain's unoccupied royal palaces. These are:
- The Tower of London
- Hampton Court Palace
- Kensington Palace (State Apartments and Orangery only)
- Banqueting House, Whitehall
- Kew Palace with Queen Charlotte's Cottage
Historic Royal Palaces is contracted by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport to manage the palaces on The Queen's behalf. It receives no funding from the Government or the Crown, depending on the support of visitors, members, donors, volunteers and sponsors. It is a registered charity.
The occupied royal palaces are cared for and maintained by the Royal Household Property Section. They are all open to the public.
Famous quotes containing the words historic, royal and/or palaces:
“Never is a historic deed already completed when it is done but always only when it is handed down to posterity. What we call “history” by no means represents the sum total of all significant deeds.... World history ... only comprises that tiny lighted sector which chanced to be placed in the spotlight by poetic or scholarly depictions.”
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“Because humans are not alone in exhibiting such behavior—bees stockpile royal jelly, birds feather their nests, mice shred paper—it’s possible that a pregnant woman who scrubs her house from floor to ceiling [just before her baby is born] is responding to a biological imperative . . . . Of course there are those who believe that . . . the burst of energy that propels a pregnant woman to clean her house is a perfectly natural response to their mother’s impending visit.”
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“Heaven is in the hut of my beloved.
Set the palaces on fire.”
—Punjabi proverb, trans. by Gurinder Singh Mann.