Frogmore is an estate within the
Home Park, adjoining
Windsor Castle, in
Berkshire
Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...
, England. It comprises , of primarily private gardens managed by the
Crown Estate. It is the location of
Frogmore House, a royal retreat, and
Frogmore Cottage. The name derives from the preponderance of
frogs which have always lived in this low-lying and marshy area near the
River Thames. This area is part of the local
flood plain
A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...
.
In the gardens of the estate are burial places for members of the
British royal family – the
Royal Mausoleum containing the tomb of
Queen Victoria and
Prince Albert
Prince Albert most commonly refers to:
*Albert, Prince Consort (1819–1861), consort of Queen Victoria
*Albert II, Prince of Monaco (born 1958), present head of state of Monaco
Prince Albert may also refer to:
Royalty
* Albert I of Belgium ...
, the
Royal Burial Ground, and the
Duchess of Kent's Mausoleum (the burial place of
Queen Victoria's mother). The gardens are
Grade I listed
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
on the
Register of Historic Parks and Gardens
The Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England provides a listing and classification system for historic parks and gardens similar to that used for listed buildings. The register is managed by Historic England ...
.
Frogmore House and grounds
Frogmore House was built in the 1680s and in 1792 the house and estate were bought by
George III for his wife
Queen Charlotte, although the land had formed part of the
Windsor royal hunting ground since the reign of
Henry VIII
Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...
. Charlotte engaged
James Wyatt to redesign the house and sought the advice of her Vice-Chamberlain, William Price, regarding the redevelopment of the grounds. Price’s brother
Uvedale, an early exponent of the
Picturesque, clearly influenced the design. In 1840, Frogmore was inherited by the
Duchess of Kent
Duchess of Kent is the principal courtesy title used by the wife of the Duke of Kent. There have been four titles referring to Kent since the 18th century. The current duchess is Katharine, the wife of Prince Edward. He inherited the dukedom o ...
and, following her death in 1861, by her daughter,
Queen Victoria. The estate became a favoured, almost sacred, retreat; after burying her mother in a
mausoleum
A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be consid ...
overlooking the lake, the Queen commissioned another, the
Royal Mausoleum, for her husband
Albert, Prince Consort
Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Franz August Karl Albert Emanuel; 26 August 1819 – 14 December 1861) was the consort of Queen Victoria from their marriage on 10 February 1840 until his death in 1861.
Albert was born in the Saxon duch ...
and for herself, after Albert’s death in 1861.
During her long widowhood, when she rarely visited London, Victoria spent much of her time at Windsor and at Frogmore. She undertook further building work in the gardens, employing
Samuel Sanders Teulon to construct a
teahouse, and engaging
Thomas Willement to redecorate the Gothic Ruin, originally designed by Wyatt and
Princess Elizabeth. In this setting Victoria placed the
Indian Kiosk, and in her later years would often undertake correspondence in a tent set up nearby, attended by her Indian servant
Abdul Karim ʻAbd al-Karīm (ALA-LC romanization of ar, عبد الكريم) is a Muslim male given name and, in modern usage, also a surname. It is built from the Arabic words '' ʻabd'' and ''al-Karīm'', one of the names of God in the Qur'an, which give ris ...
.
In 1900
Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma
Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (25 June 1900 – 27 August 1979) was a British naval officer, colonial administrator and close relative of the British royal family. Mountbatten, who was of German ...
was born at Frogmore House. On the estate near the House is
Frogmore Cottage, built for Queen Charlotte around 1801. Frogmore Gardens are
Grade I listed
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
.
Places of burial
Duchess of Kent's Mausoleum
The first of two
mausoleums within the Frogmore Gardens is the burial place of Queen Victoria's mother,
Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld
, house =
, father = Francis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld
, mother = Countess Augusta of Reuss-Ebersdorf
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Coburg, Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Holy Roman Empire
, death_date =
, death_pl ...
, the Duchess of Kent. The Mausoleum was designed by the architect
A J Humbert
Albert Jenkins Humbert ("A. J. Humbert") (1821–1877) was a British architect particularly favoured by Albert, Prince Consort, Prince Albert.
Amongst the buildings he is particularly associated with are Sandringham House and St. Mildred's Church ...
, to a concept design by Prince Albert's favourite artist, Professor Ludwig Gruner.
In the latter years of her life, the Duchess lived in Frogmore House and in the 1850s, construction began on a beautiful domed 'temple' in the grounds of the estate. The top portion of the finished building was intended to serve as a summer-house for the Duchess during her lifetime, while the lower level was destined as her final resting place. The Duchess died at Frogmore House on 16 March 1861 before the summer-house was completed so the upper chamber became part of the mausoleum and now contains a statue of the Duchess by
William Theed (1864).
Royal Mausoleum
The second mausoleum in the grounds of Frogmore, just a short distance from the Duchess of Kent's Mausoleum, is the much larger Royal Mausoleum, the burial place of
Queen Victoria and her consort,
Prince Albert
Prince Albert most commonly refers to:
*Albert, Prince Consort (1819–1861), consort of Queen Victoria
*Albert II, Prince of Monaco (born 1958), present head of state of Monaco
Prince Albert may also refer to:
Royalty
* Albert I of Belgium ...
. Queen Victoria and her husband had long intended to construct a special resting place for them both, instead of the two of them being buried in one of the traditional resting places of British Royalty, such as
Westminster Abbey or
St. George's Chapel, Windsor. The mausoleum for the Queen's mother was being constructed at Frogmore in 1861 when Prince Albert died in December of the same year. Within a few days of his death, proposals for the mausoleum were being drawn up by the same designers involved in the Duchess of Kent's Mausoleum: Professor Gruner and
A. J. Humbert
Albert Jenkins Humbert ("A. J. Humbert") (1821–1877) was a British architect particularly favoured by Prince Albert.
Amongst the buildings he is particularly associated with are Sandringham House and St. Mildred's Church, Whippingham
and bot ...
.
Work commenced in March 1862. The dome was made by October and the building was consecrated in December 1862, although the decoration was not finished until August 1871. The building is in the form of a
Greek cross. The exterior was inspired by Italian
Romanesque buildings, the walls are of granite and
Portland stone
Portland stone is a limestone from the Tithonian stage of the Jurassic period quarried on the Isle of Portland, Dorset. The quarries are cut in beds of white-grey limestone separated by chert beds. It has been used extensively as a building sto ...
and the roof is covered with Australian copper. The internal decoration is in the style of Albert's favourite painter,
Raphael, an example of
Victoriana at its most opulent. The interior walls are mainly faced in Portuguese red marble, a gift from
King Luis I of Portugal, a cousin of both Victoria and Albert, and are inlaid with other marbles from around the world. The
monumental tomb itself was designed by Baron
Carlo Marochetti. It features recumbent marble
effigies of the Queen and Prince Albert. The sarcophagus was made from a single piece of flawless grey
Aberdeen granite. The Queen's effigy was made at the same time, but was not put in the mausoleum until after her funeral.
Only Victoria and Albert are interred there, but the mausoleum contains other memorials. Among those is a monument to
Princess Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse-Darmstadt (1843–1878), Victoria's second daughter, who died of
diphtheria shortly after her youngest daughter May (1874–1878). In the centre of the chapel is a monument to
Edward, Duke of Kent
Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, (Edward George Nicholas Paul Patrick; born 9 October 1935) is a member of the British royal family. Queen Elizabeth II and Edward were first cousins through their fathers, King George VI, and Prince George, Duk ...
, Victoria's father. He died in 1820 and is buried in St George's Chapel, Windsor.
One of the sculptures is of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in Saxon Dress, commissioned after Prince Albert's death and executed by
William Theed (1804–91). It was unveiled on 20 May 1867 in Windsor Castle, and was moved to the Royal Mausoleum in 1938.
The plaster model, which was exhibited in 1868 at the
Royal Academy of Arts
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purpo ...
, is on loan from the
Royal Collection
The Royal Collection of the British royal family is the largest private art collection in the world.
Spread among 13 occupied and historic royal residences in the United Kingdom, the collection is owned by King Charles III and overseen by the ...
to the
National Portrait Gallery, London
The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art gallery in London housing a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. It was arguably the first national public gallery dedicated to portraits in the world when it ...
. Queen Victoria recorded in her diary that the idea for it came from
Victoria, Princess Royal (her eldest child) and that the inscription on the plinth is a quotation from ''
The Deserted Village'' by
Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith (10 November 1728 – 4 April 1774) was an Anglo-Irish novelist, playwright, dramatist and poet, who is best known for his novel ''The Vicar of Wakefield'' (1766), his pastoral poem ''The Deserted Village'' (1770), and his pl ...
. The inscription on the plinth alludes to the poet's lament for the passing of the imagined village of 'Sweet Auburn'.
The building has been closed to the public since 2007 because it is structurally unsound. The foundations are waterlogged, and the lower elements of the building are disintegrating. In February 2018, the Royal Household announced it was undertaking repair work on the mausoleum; the work is expected to be complete by 2023.
Royal Burial Ground
Since its inauguration in 1928, most members of the royal family, except for Kings and Queens, have been interred in the
Royal Burial Ground, a cemetery behind Queen Victoria's mausoleum. Among those buried there are
Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, and
Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, as well as
Prince George, Duke of Kent; the
Duke of Windsor, who reigned as
King Edward VIII before abdication; and his wife
Wallis. Many members of the families of
Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein and of the
Marquess of Cambridge are also buried there. Also in the Burial Ground is the
cenotaph of
Queen Maria of Yugoslavia
Maria of Yugoslavia (born Princess Maria of Romania; 6 January 1900 – 22 June 1961), known in Serbian as Marija Karađorđević ( sr-cyr, Марија Карађорђевић), was Queen of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later Queen of Yugo ...
, a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria and wife of
King Aleksandar I of Yugoslavia. Having lived in exile in London, she was buried here from 1961 until April 2013, when her remains were exhumed and returned to
Oplenac, Serbia.
Queen Victoria’s Teahouse, the Indian Kiosk and the Gothic Ruin
Various other structures stand in the grounds including the 'Gothic Ruin' (1793), 'Queen Victoria's Teahouse' (a brick pavilion of 1869) and the
Indian Kiosk. Constructed of marble, the kiosk was taken from the
Qaisar Bagh in
Lucknow following the looting of the city, by the
Viceroy of India,
Charles Canning, 1st Earl Canning in 1858. The kiosk is octagonal with an
onion dome with round arches and deep eaves. It is a
Grade II listed structure.
Teulon’s Teahouse also has a Grade II listing while James Wyatt’s nearby Gothic Ruin is designated Grade II*.
Public access
The house and gardens are usually open to the public on about six days each year, usually around Easter and the August Bank Holiday. The Royal Burial Ground may be viewed from around its perimeter on the days that the gardens are open to the public. The Duchess of Kent's mausoleum may also be viewed externally, but is never open to the public.
Gallery
Frogmore House 16-08-2014 front.jpg, Frogmore House
Kentmausoleum.jpg, Mausoleum of the Duchess of Kent
Royalmausoleum.jpg, Mausoleum of Queen Victoria & Albert, Prince Consort
Royal Mausoleum of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Frogmore, Berkshire.jpg, The Royal Mausoleum and the Royal Burial Ground
Royalburialground.jpg, Royal Burial Ground
Gothic Ruin, Frogmore House Geograph-3503907-by-David-Hillas.jpg, The Gothic Ruin by James Wyatt
TeaHouse Frogmore.jpg, Queen Victoria's Teahouse by Samuel Sanders Teulon
Indiankiosk.jpg, Indian Kiosk commemorating the end of the Indian rebellion of 1857
Indian Bean Tree, Frogmore Gardens - geograph.org.uk - 262721.jpg, An Indian Bean Tree
See also
*
Windsor Great Park
*
J. W. Burrow on the use of an image of the sculpture of the Queen and Prince Albert in Saxon dress.
Footnotes
References
Sources
*
*
*
*
External links
*
The Royal Collection Trust – Frogmore House(includes details for visitors)
Historical images of Frogmore Royal Mausoleum dating from 1870–1901
{{Queen Victoria, state=collapsed
Grade I listed monuments and memorials
Mausoleums in the United Kingdom
Monuments and memorials in Berkshire
Tourist attractions in Berkshire
Home Park, Windsor
Gardens in Berkshire
Grade I listed parks and gardens in Berkshire
Monuments and memorials to Queen Victoria
Monuments and memorials to Albert, Prince Consort