Statue of Queen Victoria outside the Palace depicting her on her coronation day. The statue was sculpted by Victoria's 4th daughter Princess Louise Duchess of Argyll who in her later years lived and died at the Palace.
The second photo are thegatesof the Palace with some of the flowers in remembrance of Princess Diana. The palace itself was was just a small suburban villa then in 1689 William 111 chose it as country retreat and over the years Stuart and Georgian monarchs transformed it into a Palace. Queen Victoria spent her childhood there before moving to Buckingham Palace, more recently the palace has been home to minor royals such Princess Margaret, Princess/lady Diana and her children.
St Mary Abbots Church Kensington High Street is only a 2 hundred yards from the Palace, a church has been on the site since 1262 but as the Palace and surrounding area grew so the church was rebuilt a number of times to accommodate the growing population. The present church wasbuiltin 1872 and had had number of well known parishioners including, Diana Princess of Wales, Beatrix Potter, William Wiberforce, Sir Isaac Newton, P.d. James and many more.
I couldn't end the walk without pub!, The Goat Tavern Iin the High Street opened in 1695 as coffeehouse butby1702 it was an alehouse there are rumours that there were secret tunnels linking the pub to the Palace but this has not been proved yet. The pub is more is more famouse for something more macabre, the English serial killer John George Haigh, known as the "Acid Bath Murderer" met his first victim in the pub on September the 9th 1944 and after a few drinks took him to his workshop in nearby Glousester Road, killed him and dumped his body into a 40 gallon tub of sulphuric acid. He went on to kill Upton 9 people in the same way, all so he could forge their signatures and steal their money.
Sorry about that not nice reading. 🙉
