Isle of Wight
Osborne House on the Isle of Wight was bought and developed as a private home for Queen Victoria and her family. Prince Albert designed the main house and they paid for their new grand summer home with the sale of the Royal Pavilion at Brighton. The Royal Pavilion had been the summer house for previous monarchs but Queen Victoria disliked it as she felt too exposed, it wasn't private enough. Osborne is very much a family home, the portraits in the house are of royals but really are just family members.
I've already written about my visit to Osborne House itself.
Osborne House
Swiss Cottage was built as a playhouse (a rather large one!) but nonetheless a playhouse for the royal children. It was built over a 2 year period, 1853-54 and the rooms inside were scaled down to child size. Here the royal children learnt household chores and entertained visitors, in a way they got to play at being 'regular people' and not royals. The cottage was restored and reopened in 2014 and it's quite delightful to visit.
The interior is set up for children to visit and explore some of the items that belonged to the royal children.
The play kitchen with the items all child sized.
The dining room up stairs, I love the little teacups!
A china cabinet with all the scaled down items.
As well as the playhouse, each child had a garden plot that they would grow vegetables during the months they were at Osborne. (Over the summer) Prince Albert would pay them for the vegetables they grew and they were used in the kitchens at Osborne. During the time the children weren't at Osborne the gardeners tended the plots. The garden plots are just next to the Swiss Cottage and have been recreated.
Next to the garden plots is the garden shed which houses each of the child sized wheelbarrows belonging to the children. All monogramed with their initials, I thought all of this was incredibly cute!
Swiss Cottage was deliberately built some distance from the main house and in amongst the trees so the children had some freedom and independence from being surrounded by adults.
The royal children were great collectors of items that they found themselves or were given to them, originally the items were kept in the cottage but now are housed in a separate little museum.
A small section of their collections.
This one fascinated me, originally belonged to Queen Victoria, the box contains locks of her children's hair, with the boys being tied with blue ribbon and the girls probably pink but now faded to white.
Osborne House was inherited by Queen Victoria's son King Edward VII but he didn't want it so he gave it to the state, two of Victoria's daughters Louise and Beatrice continued to live there and a private museum to Queen Victoria was established. I'm assuming that it was to this museum that Queen Mary presented the box with the locks of hair in 1915.
I loved visiting Osborne House and the estate, English Heritage who now run the estate have done a wonderful job with the restoration of the estate and it's a joy to visit. Well worth a trip to the Isle of Wight!
Osborne House on the Isle of Wight was bought and developed as a private home for Queen Victoria and her family. Prince Albert designed the main house and they paid for their new grand summer home with the sale of the Royal Pavilion at Brighton. The Royal Pavilion had been the summer house for previous monarchs but Queen Victoria disliked it as she felt too exposed, it wasn't private enough. Osborne is very much a family home, the portraits in the house are of royals but really are just family members.
I've already written about my visit to Osborne House itself.
Osborne House
Swiss Cottage was built as a playhouse (a rather large one!) but nonetheless a playhouse for the royal children. It was built over a 2 year period, 1853-54 and the rooms inside were scaled down to child size. Here the royal children learnt household chores and entertained visitors, in a way they got to play at being 'regular people' and not royals. The cottage was restored and reopened in 2014 and it's quite delightful to visit.
The interior is set up for children to visit and explore some of the items that belonged to the royal children.
The play kitchen with the items all child sized.
The dining room up stairs, I love the little teacups!
As well as the playhouse, each child had a garden plot that they would grow vegetables during the months they were at Osborne. (Over the summer) Prince Albert would pay them for the vegetables they grew and they were used in the kitchens at Osborne. During the time the children weren't at Osborne the gardeners tended the plots. The garden plots are just next to the Swiss Cottage and have been recreated.
Next to the garden plots is the garden shed which houses each of the child sized wheelbarrows belonging to the children. All monogramed with their initials, I thought all of this was incredibly cute!
Swiss Cottage was deliberately built some distance from the main house and in amongst the trees so the children had some freedom and independence from being surrounded by adults.
The royal children were great collectors of items that they found themselves or were given to them, originally the items were kept in the cottage but now are housed in a separate little museum.
A small section of their collections.
This one fascinated me, originally belonged to Queen Victoria, the box contains locks of her children's hair, with the boys being tied with blue ribbon and the girls probably pink but now faded to white.
Osborne House was inherited by Queen Victoria's son King Edward VII but he didn't want it so he gave it to the state, two of Victoria's daughters Louise and Beatrice continued to live there and a private museum to Queen Victoria was established. I'm assuming that it was to this museum that Queen Mary presented the box with the locks of hair in 1915.
I loved visiting Osborne House and the estate, English Heritage who now run the estate have done a wonderful job with the restoration of the estate and it's a joy to visit. Well worth a trip to the Isle of Wight!
Comments
Post a Comment