St James's Palace

Start at the bottom of Saint James's Street and look up. Dark red brick, worn soft by centuries of London rain. Two octagonal towers frame a gateway, and above it a large clock face catches the light. Listen for a moment. Taxis hum along Pall Mall, and somewhere behind the gate, boots strike gravel in a steady rhythm. You are standing in front of one of the oldest working royal palaces in England. It is not a museum. It is still in use.

This is Saint James's Palace. Before any king lived here, the site held a hospital for women with leprosy. It stood in open fields, well outside the walled city, and it was dedicated to Saint James the Less. That is where the name comes from. So the oldest layer of this place is not royal at all. It is a story of illness, isolation and charity, on what was then the quiet edge of London.

In the 1530s, Henry VIII took the land and closed the hospital. He built a red brick palace in the Tudor style, the style of his own dynasty. The gatehouse in front of you is the clearest survivor of that work. Henry was busy at the time. He was also expanding Whitehall Palace nearby, and he was enclosing land for hunting. Part of that land later became Saint James's Park, just to the south.

Here is the first detail most people walk past. Look closely at the gatehouse. Carved into the stonework are entwined initials, the letters H and A. They stand for Henry and Anne Boleyn, his second wife. The palace was rising during their short marriage. A few years later, Anne was executed. Yet her initial stayed in the stone. It is a small, quiet trace of a woman whose story ended badly, still visible to anyone who looks up.

For a long time, this was a secondary residence. The main royal home was Whitehall Palace, a sprawling complex down by the river. Then, in 1698, a fire destroyed most of Whitehall. The court needed a new home, and it moved here. For more than a century afterwards, Saint James's was the official centre of royal life. Kings received visitors in these rooms. Politicians, courtiers and petitioners crowded through these gates.

That history left a curious legacy in diplomacy. Foreign ambassadors to Britain are still formally accredited to the Court of Saint James's. This is true today, even though the monarch now lives and works at Buckingham Palace, a short walk west. A new ambassador arriving in London is, on paper, sent to this brick palace. It is a phrase that has outlived the arrangement it once described.

Many royal lives began and ended inside these walls. Several Stuart monarchs were born here, including Charles the Second and Queen Anne. Mary the First, Henry's elder daughter, died here in 1558. And in January 1649, Charles the First spent his last night at Saint James's. The next morning he walked across the park to Whitehall, where he was executed. Legend has it he wore extra shirts that day, so the cold would not make him shiver and look afraid.

Inside the palace is the Chapel Royal. A ceiling there is traditionally linked to Hans Holbein, the German painter who worked for Henry the Eighth, though the attribution is debated. Queen Victoria married Prince Albert in this chapel in 1840. The chapel is not a tourist site, but it is a working place of worship. On some occasions, members of the public can attend services. If you love choral music, it is worth checking ahead.

Now look across Marlborough Road, on the other side of the palace. You will see a plain, classical building, very different from the Tudor brick. This is the Queen's Chapel, designed by Inigo Jones in the seventeenth century. Jones brought the calm, symmetrical style of Italian architecture to England. Next to the Tudor gatehouse, his chapel looks almost modern. Two worlds of building sit side by side here, separated by a narrow road.

Here is the second surprise. When a British monarch dies, the new reign is formally proclaimed here. A body called the Accession Council meets inside the palace. Then a herald steps out onto a balcony above Friary Court and reads the proclamation aloud. This happened in 2022, when Charles the Third became king. Millions watched on television. But the ritual itself is centuries old, and it still begins in this building.

The palace also plays a daily role in ceremony. Soldiers of the King's Guard are posted here, in their red tunics and tall bearskin caps. If you see a sentry box, watch the guard's slow, measured patrol. Please give them space and follow any instructions they give. On days when the Changing of the Guard takes place, part of the ceremony begins at Saint James's. The troops then march along the Mall toward Buckingham Palace.

Today the palace is a working building. It holds offices for members of the Royal Family and their staff. It hosts receptions, investitures and official events. Clarence House, home to the King, stands beside it. Because of this, the state rooms are not usually open to visitors. Most people experience the palace from the outside. That is no loss. The streets around it carry as much atmosphere as many interiors.

Take a short walk around the edges. Pall Mall runs east, lined with grand private clubs from the nineteenth century. Saint James's Street climbs north, with old wine merchants, hatters and shirtmakers. Some of these shops have traded in this neighbourhood for generations. The whole area grew up because the court was here. Tailors, gentlemen's clubs and coffee houses followed the power, and many of them never left.

Before you go, turn back to the gatehouse one more time. Look at the clock, the brick and the carved initials. Listen to the traffic on one side and the guard's footsteps on the other. Five centuries of English history passed through that narrow arch. And yet, on an ordinary afternoon, it is simply a doorway in a London street. Notice the people passing by, and take that quiet contrast with you as you walk on.