Clarence House & The Mall
Why is it significant?
Walk along the Mall until you see, behind a high wall and a screen of trees, a cream stucco house that looks almost modest for its address. The flag on its roof and the sentries in bearskins at the side gate give the game away. This is Clarence House.
Key Facts
| Place | Clarence House & The Mall |
|---|---|
| Address | Clarence House, The Mall, London SW1A 1BA, United Kingdom |
| Geo Coordinates | 51.50370, -0.13870 |
| Part of Walk | Crowns, Pelicans and Bearskins: Royal London from The Mall to St James's |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk along the Mall until you see, behind a high wall and a screen of trees, a cream stucco house that looks almost modest for its address. The flag on its roof and the sentries in bearskins at the side gate give the game away. This is Clarence House.
John Nash built it in the 1820s for Prince William, Duke of Clarence, the third son of George III, who found his rooms in St James's Palace far too cramped. In 1830, rather unexpectedly, he became King William the Fourth... and he simply stayed here. He never took to Buckingham Palace at all. When the old Houses of Parliament burned down in 1834, he even offered the palace to Parliament as a new home. Parliament politely declined.
In 1949 a young married couple moved in: Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh. Their daughter Princess Anne was born here in August 1950. Two years later Elizabeth became Queen and moved down the road, and her mother took over the house. The Queen Mother lived here for almost fifty years, and on her birthday each August she would come out to the gate to wave at the crowds and collect armfuls of flowers.
Since 2003 Clarence House has been the London home of Charles, first as Prince of Wales and now as King, while Buckingham Palace goes through a long, slow renovation of its wiring, pipes and roofs. So the real home of the monarch is this quiet house, not the famous palace at the end of the road.
Now look down at your feet. The Mall was laid out in the 1660s as an alley for pall-mall, a game a bit like croquet that Charles the Second loved, and the name stuck. Its reddish surface, they say, was meant to look like a giant red carpet leading to the palace. Follow that carpet to its end, where a golden angel stands on a mountain of white marble.