Frogmore House

Frogmore House is a really charming mansion steps away from the East Terace and private aparmtents at Windsor Castle, within the Home Park, and part of the Frogmore Estate. Today, the mansion is still used by the Royal Family, and is open to the public only twice a year. It's association with the Royal Family extends back to 1792, when the lease was purchased for George III's consort, Queen Charlotte. The Royal Family had owned the estate since the mid-sixteenth century, but had leased it out until Queen Charlotte's tenure. Among it's more illustrious tenants are the Duke of Northumberland, Charles II's mistress the Duchess of Cleveland, and Sir Robert Walpole's second son: Edward. Today, it's associations are mostly with Queen Victoria and her mother; both of whose remains occupy massive mausoleums in the grounds. Likewise, behind Victoria and Albert's mausoleum are interred the remains of several of their children and further descendants. This little graveyard, though visible from the path, is off limits to the public. In its grounds are the graves of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Princess Helena (who inhabited Frogmore House for a short period), and the longest-lived member of the Royal Family: Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester; amongst others.

Queen Charlotte first occuppied a smaller lodge nearby on the Little Frogmore Estate, called Amelia Lodge; after her youngest daughter. She combined the Little and Great Frogmore Estates in 1792, demolished Amelia Lodge, and established the house we know now as Frogmore. In those days the Royal Family lived in a series of lodges just to the south of Windsor Castle on the site where today the Long Walk begins (these lodges are no longer extant). For Charlotte, Frogmore was therefore a backyard retreat. She did not use the house as such, instead it was a sort of playhouse where she could amuse herself and retreat from court life. Here she dallied in the gardens, leading her daughters in a life of luxurious boredom. When the consort of the mad King passed away in 1818, after a cantankerous and bitter old age, Frogmore was passed to her second eldest daughter, The Princess Augusta. The furnishings were sold in order to provide some settlement to the Queen's surviving daughters. Princess Augusta kept Frogmore until her death in 1840, when the estate was officially annexed into the larger Windsor Estate. The next year, Queen Victoria gave her mother, the Dowager Duchess of Kent, Frogmore as her official residence. The old Duchess spent twenty years in residence, and turned the house from daytime retreat into a Victorian home. When both the Duchess of Kent and Queen Victoria's husband died within the space of a few months, the grief stricken Queen installed their remains in elaborate, quite grandiose mausoleums just west of the lake. Victoria spent many hours in the garden (especially at her little tea house, below) working on state affairs, and enjoying the peace the surroundings afforded her. When this venerable old Queen died in 1901, her remains joined those of her long-lamented husband and consort.

After Victoria, her grandson the Prince of Wales (future George V) occuppied the house with his wife Mary and their five children. Mary was an enhusiastic preservationist and did much to enhance the house and gardens. Queen Victoria's daughter Helena, The Princess Christian of Schlewig-Holstein occuppied the house between 1866-72. Prince Christian was the ranger of Windsro great Park, and a conditon of their marriage was the Helena remain in Britain near to ther mother. However, the low-lying position of Frogmore was not coducive to Helena's delicate constitution and she moved further into the Great Park to Cumberland Lodge. Frogmore House was opened to the public for the first time in 1990, on limited days in May; generally to coincide with the closest weekend to Queen Victoria's birthday (24 May).