By Royal Appointment
It’s a story familiar across the world: a young couple, eager to expand their marital home, decide to cut corners and get the job done quickly. Where this story differs is that the couple in question were the only joint monarchs in British history and, 330 years later, visitors are still flocking to their redbrick house.
Shortly after King William III and Queen Mary II were crowned on 11 April 1689, the royal couple engaged St Paul’s Cathedral architect Sir Christopher Wren to renovate and extend Nottingham House. Wren was to turn this modest, two-storey Jacobean mansion, previously owned by the Earl of Nottingham, into Kensington Palace, a residence fit for a king and queen.
However, time was of
