I've visited Buckingham Palace twice – once through the State Rooms on a lazy summer afternoon, and once onto the lawns for a garden party. Both times I left with the same strange feeling. Dazzled by its sheer scale with ceilings that seemed to belong to a different atmosphere and rooms that made me recalibrate what the word “room” means. I also felt oddly removed from it, as if the palace was performing its grandeur at me, rather than sharing it. Like a velvet rope that never disappeared. After all, someone lived there.
So when news broke that King Charles and Queen Camilla won’t be moving into the palace once its £369m refurbishment concludes next year – choosing instead to remain at Clarence House – the question worth asking isn’t why. It’s whether the Royal Household is bold enough to write the next chapter differently.
