Buckingham Palace

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May 24th 2005
Bayswater, London, England.

I first visited Buckingham Palace about a month ago and apparently forgot to write about it. I haven't seen the famous Changing of the Guards yet, but the infrastructure and monuments and so forth are duly impressive in their own right, and worth a quick description:

The outer grounds of Buckingham Palace are defined alternately with high ornamental black metal gates and squat stone fencing. There are four wide, many-laned roads coming through the gates to circle around a large roundabout located centrally in front of the palace. At the break in the fencing for the road to pass through are high, pillared gateways to hold the heavy iron upright. These pillars all have the name of a country carved upon them about two metres up from the ground. I am not sure of the significance of this, as only some were Commonwealth countries. Australia was there, as was Canada, but surely W. Africa has never been a Commonwealth?

Regardless, the black fences and gateways form a generous half-circle and are ended with the long straight walls of the palace itself. A bit like a big angular 'D' shape. Around the inside edges of the outer fencing are fairly bland flower beds and the pedestrian pathway, then the wide roads of the roundabout, then the roundabout itself, which is more of a large concrete, marble, stone and gold monument to Queen Victoria than a traffic control. It's quite large and well-kept and white, rising in several levels above the ground.

On either side of the lowest level of this centerpiece, two wide fountains cling to the curving dias like fat crescent moons. There are coins lying in the blue-tiled bottoms, and they sparkle wetly in the sun like scales upon a fish. Up a set of stairs, and on the side facing away from the palace front, is the stern, seated figure of Queen Victoria. Strange, how such a dour countenance inspired such deep loyalty and devotion. Assuming that devotion is what it is - for there are many, many statues and tributaries to her throughout the city; it's almost to the point where there is one on every third corner.

On the other two sides of the monument are warrior angels, and facing the palace is a motherly, madonna-like figure with children spilling life-like from her lap and clutching her ankles in adoration. The embodiment of motherhood; makes me shudder, haha. It is all in white marble and white stone, and high above them is a gold warrior angel.

Between all of this and the palace itself are, of course, more gates, but this time there are no easily scaled squat stone fences, only very high black fencing and very stern red-coated palace guards.

Adjoining the grounds of Buckingham Palace is Green Park, another shining example of English Royal parks. Due to all the rain, England is a very green and blooming country. They have made a focal point of this by walling off huge many-acred grounds of trees, grass, occasional man-made lakes and pathways, and calling it a park. In Cairns a park is rarely bigger than an acre and the crowning point is usually children's play equipment. Here it's an enormous green patch of land with towering ancient trees. Somewhere on the grounds you'll usually find kiosks selling ice-creams and refreshments, and children's play areas, and park seats along the paths. Often there'll be a path of churned earth running alongside the asphalt path, and that is for the use of those rich enough to own and ride a horse. It’s all very green and verdant and English. I’ve never before seen a capital city with so much acreage devoted to grass and trees. It’s wonderful.

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Photos

Buckingham Plan
Borrowed from this site: http://www.changing-the-guard.com/sched.htm