Buckingham Palace was built as Buckingham House for the Duke of Buckingham in 1703. The Royal Family resided in St. James's Palace, but in 1837 when Queen Victoria became queen that palace was no longer impressive enough, and The Royal Family moved to what became Buckingham Palace.
Buckingham Palace has been continually expanded both before and after George III bought it, and today it consists of three wings and an inner quadrangle and has a front which was completed in 1913 by Sir Aston Webb. It has 77.000 square meters of floorspace.
Buckingham Palace was deliberately attempted bombed by German bombers during World War II, and one bomb got close enough to destroy the chapel and smash a lot of windows, but the main buildings were not seriously affected.
For historical reasons the Queen's Life Guard guards the entrance to Horse Guard near Whitehall, which is the official entrance to both St. James's Palace and Buckingham Palace, which is rather far away from Buckingham Palace, but the change of the guard marches past Buckingham Palace to change the guard detachment there as well.
The Buckingham Gates are made by Bromsgrove Guild, a group of artists and craftsmen which received a royal commission in 1908 and existed between 1898 and 1966.
Today Buckingham Palace is a major tourist sight in London, and you can visit 19 rooms in the Palace in August and September when the Queen is in Scotland.
![[Nice curvy icon]](./grafik/niceline.gif){kind=small}