Royal Mews

The Royal Mews is a working stable and carriage collection in the grounds of Buckingham Palace. It stands on the south side of the palace gardens, near Grosvenor Place in the City of Westminster. The site has housed royal horses and coaches since the 1760s, when George III moved some of his stables there. In the 1820s George IV converted Buckingham Palace into the main royal residence and brought the entire mews to this site. John Nash designed the present quadrangle of coach houses and stables, completed in 1825, though the buildings have been altered many times since. The mews remains a busy royal department under the Crown Equerry and the Master of the Horse. It keeps about thirty horses and a large fleet of ceremonial carriages, including the Australian State Coach presented in 1988. The Hanoverian cream stallions once used for state processions were withdrawn in the 1920s because of inbreeding, and grey horses known as the Windsor Greys took their place. Queen Victoria established a school for workers’ children in the 1850s, and Edward VIII introduced motor cars in the 1930s. Visitors find stables, coach houses and a quadrangle laid out by Nash. The state carriages and motor cars are displayed alongside the horses that still pull them on ceremonial occasions. Flats above the buildings house the staff who care for the animals and vehicles. The mews is also a working base for royal transport, so coaches and cars leave daily to support the monarch’s duties.