Qualla: Kew Palace

Kew Palace: Introduction

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ethan Doyle White, CC BY-SA 4.0. Among the glasshouses and rare specimens of Kew Gardens stands a building that looks like it wandered in from a Vermeer painting - a crisp red-brick gable, scrolled Flemish curves, sash windows reflecting the lawns. This is Kew Palace, sometimes still called the Dutch House for its 1631 styling. It is the smallest of Britain's royal residences, and arguably the most domestic. It is where George III recovered, declined, and eventually was confined during his bouts of mental illness, and where his wife Queen Charlotte died in 1818 in an upstairs chair.

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Image: Ethan Doyle White | CC BY-SA 4.0

Kew Palace: The Dutch House

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sergei Gussev, CC BY 2.0. The building was raised in 1631 by Samuel Fortrey, a wealthy London merchant of Flemish heritage, who imported the Dutch architectural fashion of the day along with his bricks. The shaped gables, the elegant proportions, the warm brick - all signal a Holland-by-way-of-the-Thames ...

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Image: Sergei Gussev | CC BY 2.0

Kew Palace: A King in His Decline

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Johann Georg Ziesenis, Public domain. Kew is where George III spent some of his darkest hours. Beginning in 1788, his recurring illness - now generally understood to have been a form of porphyria or perhaps bipolar disorder - meant prolonged stays at Kew under the care of physicians whose treatments could be cruel. B...

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Image: Johann Georg Ziesenis | Public domain

Kew Palace: Quiet Weddings, Loud Plans

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Robert Smith, CC BY-SA 3.0. On 11 July 1818 the future William IV married Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen at Kew Palace in a joint ceremony alongside his brother Edward, Duke of Kent, who married Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Their daughter, born the following year, would become Queen Victoria. George IV, wh...

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Image: Robert Smith | CC BY-SA 3.0

Kew Palace: Diamond Jubilee Gift

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rebecca Nesvet, CC BY-SA 4.0. Queen Victoria, who had briefly sent three of her own children to summer at Kew in 1844 before settling on Osborne House on the Isle of Wight instead, finally let the Dutch House go. In 1898, to mark her Diamond Jubilee, she transferred the building - along with Queen Charlotte's...

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Image: Rebecca Nesvet | CC BY-SA 4.0

Kew Palace: Restored, Reopened, Lived In Again

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sergei Gussev, CC BY 2.0. A major restoration project began in 1996. It went deeper than fresh paint and patched plaster: master weaver Ian Dale of Scotland rewove the period drapery and fabric decoration room by room, matching designs from documentary evidence. A discreet external lift shaft was added to...

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Image: Sergei Gussev | CC BY 2.0