Королевские конюшни: История и современность

Grade I listed transport museum in City of Westminster, United Kingdom

The Royal Mews is a mews, or collection of equestrian stables, of the British royal family. In London these stables and stable hands' quarters have occupied two main sites in turn, being located at first on the north side of Charing Cross, and then (since the 1820s) within the grounds of Buckingham Palace. The Royal Mews, Buckingham Palace, includes an extensive display of royal carriages and other associated items, and is open to the public for much of the year. It is also a working part of the palace, where horses and people live and work, and where carriages and cars are in daily use supporting the work of the monarch as head of state. The titular head of the Royal Mews is the Master of the Horse (one of the three great officers of the Royal Household). The executive head is the Crown Equerry, who lives on site and oversees the Royal Mews Department (which is a department of the Royal Household).

The first set of stables to be referred to as a mews was at Charing Cross at the western end of The Strand. The royal hawks were kept at this site from 1377 and the name originates from the fact that they were confined there at moulting time ("mew" being derived from the French verb "muer", to moult). In the Tudor Period, the Royal Stables were located in Lomesbury (present day Bloomsbury). In 1534 they were destroyed by fire, whereupon the King, Henry VIII, decided to rebuild the Charing Cross mews as a stables (the hawks having been given alternative accommodation). It kept its former name when it acquired this new function. On old maps, such as the "Woodcut" map of London of the early 1560s, the Mews can be seen extending back towards the site of today's Leicester Square. It was rebuilt again in 1732 to the designs of William Kent, and in the early 19th century it was open to the public. This building was usually known as the King's Mews (or Queen's Mews when there was a woman on the throne), but was also sometimes referred to as the Royal Mews or the Royal Stables. Kent's redesign was a classical building occupying the northern half of the site, with an open space in front of it that ranked among the few large ones in central London at a time when the Royal Parks were on the fringes of the city and most squares in London were garden squares open only to the residents of their surrounding houses. On 15 June 1820, the Guards in the Royal Mews mutinied in support of Caroline of Brunswick, whom King George IV was seeking to divorce. The whole site was cleared in the late 1820s to create Trafalgar Square, laid out in 1837–1844 after delays, and the National Gallery which opened in 1838.

The present Royal Mews is in the grounds of Buckingham Palace, to the south of Buckingham Palace Gardens, near Grosvenor Place. In the 1760s George III moved some of his day to day horses and carriages to the grounds of Buckingham House, which he had acquired in 1762 for his wife's use. The Riding School, thought to be by William Chambers, dates from this period (it was completed in 1764; the pediment, with sculptural motifs by William Theed, was added in 1859). Beyond it, the 'back mews' included accommodation for a veterinary surgeon. When Victoria came to the throne in 1837, Buckingham Palace became the monarch's principal residence. Prince Albert used the back mews for stabling his own horses (for riding and driving). By the 1850s there were just under two hundred people employed at the mews, most of whom lived on site with their families. The conversion duly took place, and accommodation was provided nearby for the chauffeurs.

As well as being a full time working facility, the Royal Mews, Buckingham Palace, is regularly open to the public. The state coaches and other carriages are kept there, along with about 30 horses, together with their modern counterparts: the state motor cars. Coachmen, grooms, chauffeurs and other staff are accommodated in flats above the carriage houses and stables.

The horses in the Royal Mews today are mostly either Windsor Greys or Cleveland Bays. The horses are regularly exercised in the art of pulling carriages (one of the reasons for the continuing use of horse drawn transport for the daily messenger rounds); they are used for competitive and recreational driving as well as for ceremonial duties. The manure that is produced by the horses is used by the adjacent Buckingham Palace Garden.

The maintenance and provision of modern motor vehicles is as much a part of the work of the Royal Mews as that of carriages and horses. Edward VII first established a garage in the Mews in the early years of the twentieth century. The principal official cars are all painted in black over claret (known as Royal Claret). They are driven, cared for and maintained by a number of chauffeurs, who are based in the Mews and work under the head chauffeur (who, along with his deputy, is primarily responsible for driving the monarch).

The following chart shows the staff structure of the Royal Mews Department at the end of the twentieth century (when around fifty people lived and worked at the Mews). The position of Superintendent, which included oversight of the staff of the Mews, was abolished in 2000.

The Royal Mews, Hampton Court Palace overlooks Hampton Court Green. It continues to provide accommodation for royal staff, and horses are stabled there from time to time. It is not open to the public. There is a working Royal Mews at Windsor Castle where the Ascot carriages are normally kept, together with vehicles used in Windsor Great Park. Some horses for riding (rather than driving) are also stabled here. At Holyrood, the Royal Mews (situated in Abbey Strand) is one of the oldest parts of the Palace, and is still pressed into service whenever royal carriages are used in Edinburgh. Historically, the old stables of St James's Palace, which stood where Lancaster House is now, were also sometime referred to as the Royal Mews.