Clarence House
Clarence House is a royal home in London, situated in The Mall. It is attached to St. James's Palace and shares the palace's garden. For nearly 50 years from 1953 to 2002 it was home to Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, but is now the official residence of The Prince of Wales, his second wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, and his sons by his marriage to Lady Diana Spencer, William and Harry of Wales. It is open to visitors for approximately two months each summer, but tickets must be booked in advance.
The house was built between 1825 and 1827 to a design by John Nash. It was commissioned by William IV who was known as the Duke of Clarence before he inherited the throne in 1830. He lived there in preference to the nearby St. James's Palace, which he found too cramped. It passed to his sister Princess Augusta Sophia and, following her death in 1840, to Viktoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, the mother of Queen Victoria. In 1866, it became the home of Queen Victoria's second son and fourth child Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Duke of Edinburgh until his death in 1900. His younger brother Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, Queen Victoria's third son, used the house from 1900 until his death in 1942, during which time the house suffered damage inflicted by enemy bombing. It was used by the Red Cross and the St. John Ambulance Brigade as their headquarters during the rest of World War II, before being given to Princess Elizabeth and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh. Princess Anne, Princess Royal was born there in 1950. After the death of George VI, the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret moved there in 1953, though the latter eventually moved to an apartment in Kensington Palace.
The house has four stories, not including attics or basements, and is faced in pale stucco. It has undergone extensive remodelling and reconstruction over the years, most notably after the Second World War, such that relatively little remains of Nash's original structure. The Prince of Wales moved here in 2003 after the house underwent massive refurbishment after the death of his grandmother Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. The house has been completely rewired, most of the major rooms were redecorated by the interior designer Robert Kime, and the building was given an external facelift.
The term "Clarence House" is often used as a metonym for the Prince of Wales's private office.