Kew Palace & Queen Charlotte’s Cottage

Kew Palace is the smallest of all the British royal palaces, located in the natural expanses of Kew Gardens, just upriver from London on the banks of the Thames.  Originally a mansion for wealthy London silk merchants, in the 1720s George II and Queen Charlotte arrived with their children and took leases on the palace, as well as several other small properties in its vicinity.

Georgian royalty occupied Kew and its neighborhood Richmond Lodge for generations, using it as a retreat from public life.  It was a place where they could be private and domestic, and could exist together, unencumbered by the expectations of ceremony, stifling traditions, and strictly maintained homes.  As such, Kew’s relative intimacy reflects a wholly human portrait of the British monarchy during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

In some way, the very atmosphere of the palace itself tells the powerful story of George III (1738-1820), who used Kew as a refuge when he went “mad”-a claim that has been repeatedly disputed and supported, ever since the monarch’s death.

📖 Full Story Page 146-7

AWA Community Insight:
dizzy22_King George III treated here for his ‘madness’. Cutlery use was restricted. https://www.hrp.org.uk/kew-palace/history-and-stories/george-iii/