Buckingham, St James Palace & Afternoon Tea at Kensington Palace

Meeting point

Where

We are meeting at the Park Gate between Ritz Hotel and the Station Entrance where the Black Gates are. Under the porch of Green Park Station Street Level. Nearest Underground: Green Park · Open in Google Maps

Departure

10:30, 11:30, 13:30 daily; scheduled year-round (operator schedule, seats confirmed at checkout)

Return

We will end the tour at the Orangery where we are hosting the High Tea.

Pickup

No hotel pickup: everyone meets at the start point

Operator

Top Tasting Tours; booking and payment are completed on Viator

1. 1
   Green Park

   Formally known as Upper St James Park, Green Park is the starting point of the tour. We will head away from the crowds to discover quiet spots and discreet passageways that lead away from the regular tours.

   10 min
2. 2
   St. James's

   St James is the main aristocratic quarter of London where the landed gentry and political classes mingled in chocolate houses and taverns that became prestigious clubs in the seventeenth century. You will stroll through little used back streets with their fascinating history

   10 min
3. 3
   Spencer House

   Spencer House at the end of the small street. Built between 1756-1766 for John, first Earl Spencer, an ancestor of Diana, Princess of Wales (1961-1997) it is London’s finest surviving eighteenth-century town house.

   5 min
4. 4
   The Mall

   St James Palace remains the official London royal palace and is not regularly open to visitors, but the public can attend Sunday services at the Chapel Royal and the Queen's Chapel.

   5 min
5. 5
   Clarence House

   The house was built between 1825 and 1827 to a design by John Nash. It was commissioned by the Duke of Clarence, who in 1830 became King William IV of the United Kingdom (reigned 1830–1837). He lived there in preference to the adjacent St James's Palace, an ancient Tudor building which he found too cramped

   5 min
6. 6
   St. James's Palace

   St James is the main aristocratic quarter of London where the landed gentry and political classes mingled in chocolate houses and taverns that became prestigious clubs in the seventeenth century. You will stroll through little used back streets with their fascinating history

   5 min
7. 7
   Buckingham Palace

   In the Middle Ages, the site of the future palace formed part of the Manor of Ebury (also called Eia). The marshy ground was watered by the river Tyburn, which still flows below the courtyard and south wing of the palace. Where the river was fordable (at Cow Ford), the village of Eye Cross grew. Ownership of the site changed hands many times; owners included Edward the Confessor and his queen consort Edith of Wessex in late Saxon times, and, after the Norman Conquest, William the Conqueror. William gave the site to Geoffrey de Mandeville, who bequeathed it to the monks of Westminster Abbey.

   5 min
8. 8
   Wellington Arch

   Cross to the Wellington Arch (Decimus Burton) 1828. 4 horse chariot with a figure of peace (1912) Central Passage was reserved for royalty.

   5 min
9. 9
   Bomber Command Memorial

   The Royal Air Force Bomber Command Memorial is a memorial commemorating the crews of RAF Bomber Command who embarked on missions during the Second World War. The memorial, on the south side of Piccadilly, facing Hyde Park Corner, was built to mark the sacrifice of 55,573 aircrew from Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Czechoslovakia, Poland and other allied countries, as well as civilians of all nations killed during raids.

   5 min
10. 10
    The house was originally built in red brick by Robert Adam between 1771 and 1778 for Lord Apsley, the Lord Chancellor, who gave the house its name

    Some Adam interiors survive: the Piccadilly Drawing Room with its apsidal end and Adam fireplace, and the Portico Room, behind the giant Corinthian portico added by Wellington.

    5 min
11. 11
    Royal Albert Hall

    The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London, England. It has a seating capacity of 5,272. Since the hall's opening by Queen Victoria in 1871, the world's leading artists from many performance genres have appeared on its stage.

    5 min
12. 12
    Albert Memorial

    The Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens is one of London's most ornate monuments. It commemorates the death of Prince Albert, who died of typhoid in 1861.

    5 min
13. 13
    Kensington Palace

    George II was blind in one eye and hard of hearing. In Kensington Palace, 25 October, 1760 he rose as usual at 6:00 am, drank a cup of hot chocolate, and went to his close stool alone. After a few minutes, his valet heard a loud crash and entered the room to find the king on the floor. The king was lifted into his bed, and Princess Amelia was sent for; before she reached him, he was dead. At the age of nearly 77 he had lived longer than any of his English or British predecessors. A post-mortem revealed that the king had died as the result of a thoracic aortic dissection. He was succeeded by his grandson George III, and buried on 11 November in Westminster Abbey. He left instructions for the sides of his and his wife's coffins to be removed so that their remains could mingle. He is the most recent monarch to be buried in Westminster Abbey.

    5 min

About this tour, from the operator