Every year more thanseven million peoplestroll the Broad Walk inKensington Gardens,the north-south avenue

that separates the private royalworld of Kensington Palace fromthe public park that sprawls tothe east. Until recently, few everstrayed beyond this westernlimit, the presence of a 2.4m-high spiky fence and thickshrubbery signalling the royalrealm as clearly off-limits.

And yet it was not. Since the1920s, a large part of KensingtonPalace has been open to thepublic — for those determinedenough to find the entrance.

“I remember coming across anAmerican family who were intears because they couldn’t findthe way in,” says ToddLongstaffe-Gowan, the land-scape architect who has workedto reinstate the palace with a newpublic setting as part of a £12million renovation, completedlast month. “A lot of peopledidn’t even know it was there.”

Over the years, the palace hadretreated further and furtherbehind layers of fences andfoliage, with trees planted forprivacy along the eastern front,and visitors forced to navigatearound to a low-key entrancefrom the north.

“Our primary aim has been tomake the palace part of the land-scape again, as was alwaysintended,” says Longstaffe-Gowan, describing how thehistory of the building’s succes-sive improvements and additionshad always been based on open-ing up views, not retreatingbehind protective suburbanscreens.

For the past 300 years, thegardens around KensingtonPalace have provided a play-ground for consecutive royals todemonstrate their particularhorticultural ambitions, all ofthem overwriting the plans oftheir predecessors. This compet-

itive history began in 1689 whenWilliam and Mary acquired thebuilding to escape the “grime” ofWhitehall, retreating to ahumble mansion in Kensington,a village that “esteem’d a verygood Air”.

The Queen enlarged thegardens, with box hedges in theDutch style to make the King feelat home, as well as addingembroidered parterres, a mount,bowling green, banquetinghouse, wilderness gardens and amenagerie filled with curiouswild fowl, tortoises, snails and“tygers”.

From 1702, Mary’s sister,Queen Anne, was keen to makeher mark, annexing a further12ha from Hyde Park andexpelling the stiffness of herpredecessors’ efforts. She hatedthe scent of the box (and her late

brother-in-law) and so replacedtheir Dutch scheme with aromantic English model, creat-ing a new wilderness, mount andsunken garden, as well as anorangery to the north and newpaddocks for her own “zoologicalgarden”.

But the most imaginative andenduring contributions, accord-ing to Longstaffe-Gowan, weremade by Queen Caroline,consort of George II, in the1730s. An ardent supporter of thefashion for a more “natural style”of gardening, she employedCharles Bridgeman to undertakea comprehensive remodelling,excavating a large pond fromwhich radial avenues extendedacross the park, framing “welljudg’d Vistos” across broadlawns, with serpentine walkssnaking through the trees. It iswith the Bridgeman mindset of“unaffected Englishness” that therecent transformation has beenundertaken.

“Our approach has been toreinstate the noble simplicity of his designs, to once againmake the palace the principalobject in the park,” saysLongstaffe-Gowan.

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The aim was to reinstate the‘noble simplicity’of Bridgeman’sdesigns

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Charles Bridgeman’s plan for Kensington Palace Gardens,commissioned by Queen Caroline, circa 1733.

The palace is now approachedfrom the east, with a newsloping lawn, framed bymarching yew sentinels.

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A project to liberate long-concealed areasof Kensington Palace has successfullytransformed its outside spaces. However, the interior renovations areunderwhelming, writes Oliver Wainwright

PALACE COUP

LANDSCAPE PLAN 1 Kensington Palace2 Orangery lawn3 Sunk garden4 Wiggly walk5 Victoria Basin6 Palace lawn

7 South slip8 Flower garden slip9 Clump lawn10 Stub alley11 South gates

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The scheme involved rippingout 64 mature trees — much tothe horror of the local tree officer— and removing 7,000 tonnes ofsoil, as well as banishing greatswathes of clutter that hadaccrued between the gardens andthe park, including gaudy, gildedrailings from the 1980s, “worthyof a sheikh’s palace”.

A wide, terraced lawn nowsteps gently down from theBroad Walk to the new palaceentrance, framed with sharp,galvanised steel edging andpaced by marching yewsentinels, giving the eastern fronta proper approach for the firsttime. Now seen on axis, thegleaming statue of QueenVictoria, formerly choked byfences, also has a new home,surrounded by an octagonalpond that echoes the geometry ofBridgeman’s pool to the east.

To the north-east of the palace,the change in level is now medi-ated by a theatrical “wiggly walk”,a creative response to the needfor DDA-compliant 100m-long

ramp access. Inspired by thepicturesque winding routesfound in Bridgeman’s plan, thepath twists and turns betweenwhat will soon be thick horn-beam hedgerows, creating aplayful tableau of heads bobbingup and down as they processdown the slope.

To the south, in the formerarea of Princess Margaret’s owngarden — a twee concoction ofornamental shrubs and a newtpond — the original slopinglandform has been revealed and awild meadow planted, which willbe grazed with sheep come theautumn, apparently a commonsight here until the 1960s.

For a slim budget of £1.24

million, more than half of whichwas spent on earth removal,Longstaffe-Gowan and his part-ner James Fox have achieved aremarkable transformation,creating an open, inviting settingfor the palace — already reflectedin visitor figures, which havemore than doubled, with 65,000in April alone, exceeding those ofHampton Court.

Palace remodellingThe exterior works set the scenefor a substantial remodelling ofthe palace itself by JohnSimpson Architects. Central tothe ambition of enticing morevisitors, the building’s east-westorientation has been reinstated,with a new entrance to the east-ern front.

A green-painted cast-ironpergola now welcomes visitors,complete with Regency-stylegolden swags and ropes in asimilarly fruity vein to the prac-tice’s work on the Queen’sGallery at Buckingham Palace. It is a toned-down version of the

original design, which DanielMoylan, then council memberfor planning, slammed as “decoratively over-elaborate andalmost embarrassingly ‘twee’,”adding that “one could easilyimagine it being replicated one day in a garden furniturecatalogue”.

The central bay of the groundfloor elevation has been strippedof its white stucco, added by

Nash, to restore the originalbalance of the facade — and“stop it looking like a liquoriceallsort,” as Simpson jokes —while the rest has been paintedto match the brickwork.

Within, this lower-groundlevel has been carved out andnew steel posts installed, cladwith doric plaster sheaths toreplicate existing columns, whileniches have been opened up into

doorways to form an invitingtriple enfilade entrancesequence.

Along the whole of the southfront, former staff offices are nowa suite of ample educationspaces, while, to the north, anentirely new shop and café build-ing has been inserted, finishedwith a vaulted ceiling andimmaculately pointed brickarches to the exterior, overseen byEmma Simpson, with bricksmade from sand extracted on site.

Unusually for one of theHistoric Royal Palace attractions,the entirety of this ground flooris accessible without buying aticket, allowing visitors to enjoythe building and its gardens (andspend money) without enteringthe state apartments.

The ticket buying itself is donein a theatrical space to the southof the entrance, a former court-yard now topped with a glazedroof and a lurid satin canopywith 60cm-long tassels, “like something left over from aroyal pageant,” says Simpson.

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The ticket desk is framed by a camp stage set, likesomething from a pageant.

The new café and shopspace opens out on to a sunken terrace.

Theapartmentsfeature kitschcarpetsemblazonedwith wordsfromVictoria’sdiary.

The ticket desk is framed by anequally camp stage set, dressedwith swags, drapes and gildedtwiddles, hinting at what lies instore upstairs.

The next space serves as theorientation hub from which thevarious state apartments areaccessed via restored staircasesand corridors, simplifying thecirculation from the formerwarren of passages. The centre ofthe room is bestowed with abulbous burgundy banquette, analluring studded-leather objecton which children clamber andpensioners recline when we visit.

The apartments themselveshave been disappointingly fittedout with dumbed down set dressing by Dutch practiceOpera Amsterdam and “adven-ture makers” Coney.

Quotes from Queen Victoria’sdiary are plastered across tablesand printed on carpets, whichalternate arbitrarily from deepred to mossy green to blue toblack, somehow following thestages of the Queen’s psyche —

with scant attempts to recreateperiod interiors. Individualrooms are filled with a clutter ofstrange display systems, a riot ofungainly booths, stands andprojections, with soundscapes,magic mirrors and “whispermachines”. The passage leadingto the display of Diana’s dressesis lined with a garish wallpaperby artist Julie Verhoeven,“inspired by some of thePrincess’s key fashion moments”,while an inexplicable glowingtree fills the entrance rotunda.

It is all remarkably tacky, but somehow highly suitable for the British royal family, apopulist monarchy that has no pretence of being remotelyhighbrow or of having anydiscernible sense of taste.

Throughout, the restorationtreads a fine line between sensi-tively in keeping and verging onkitsch. Many of the more sympa-thetic moves in fact employ thepastiche fakery of much of thework at Poundbury — such as agrand stone stair, which turns

out to be made of painted MDF.Similarly, a new elevator hasbeen deftly inserted where a backstaircase formerly stood, but it islined with etched mirror andsurmounted with a Grecian urnin the manner of a five-starSheraton — although apparentlyforeign tourists have asked ifit is a 17th century original.(The same question has not beenasked about the miniature colon-nade of Doric columns thatprovide modesty screensbetween the urinals).

In many ways it is a shame thatwhat we see today is not theresult of the direct patronage ofthe current monarchy, a further

layer to the heady palimpsest ofsuccessive interior and horticul-tural tastes. When PrincessMargaret died in 2002, thepalace was intended to be phasedout as a home for royal relativeswithin a generation, ending thebuilding’s role as what KingEdward VIII once referred to asthe great “aunt heap”.

But now both William andKate, as well as Harry, are sched-uled to move in soon — and wecan look forward to seeing howthey will make their mark on thisrambling pile.

PROJECT TEAM

ArchitectJohn Simpson & PartnersLandscape architectTodd Longstaffe-GowanLandscape DesignMain contractorMansell Construction Structural engineerHockley & DawsonServices engineerRamboll (formerly Gifford)

The change in level is now negotiatedby a playful “Wiggly walk” betweenhornbeam hedgerows.

It is remarkablytacky butsomehow highlysuitable for theroyal family

Visitor figureshave more thandoubled, with 65,000 inApril alone

One of therestoredstaircases to the stateapartments.

View from the palace across Kensington Gardens.

John Simpson’s cast-iron entrance pergola, toned down from being “embarrassingly twee”.

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