Historic Greenwich gallery
Please note: This gallery may occasionally be closed. Please see Latest visitor information for all details of closures.
Location: Queen's House ground floor, east side
The Queen’s House was not built to stand alone. It was designed as an addition to the royal palace of Placentia at Greenwich, built by Henry VII and extended by Henry VIII.
Henry VIII, a compulsive builder and an enthusiastic horseman and jouster, rebuilt the chapel and added a tiltyard with towers and a viewing gallery. His daughter, Queen Elizabeth, spent most summers at the palace but did little building. It was not until her successor, James I, assigned the palace to his wife, Queen Anne of Denmark, that significant work recommenced.
Anne commissioned Saloman de Caus to design an artfully contrived Italianate garden with fountains, an aviary and a grotto encrusted with mother-of-pearl and shells. She then employed Inigo Jones to design her adjacent retreat, the Queen’s House, but by the time of her death in 1619 only the lower storeys had been completed. Jones resumed work on the house in the 1630s for Queen Henrietta Maria, completing it in 1638.