Standing outside Balmoral castle front entrance with nine other Interior ticket holders felt like waiting for Willy Wonka to take us on a tour of the chocolate factory. We had all joined the online rush to purchase the 3400 available slots to see inside Balmoral for the first time and at the given time, the command was given to ‘open the doors’.
Once inside the entrance hall, one of our two guides asked us to please put on shoe covers as we were now about to enter a private home, phones had to be switched off and bags kept at a low height. Looking down on us were 22 stags heads, placed evenly around the top of the walls, shot by various members of the royal family since Prince Albert’s day.
Onto the Red Corridor, decorated with flocked wallpaper commissioned by Queen Victoria from her pal William Morris but the eye was drawn to a large white marble statue of Prince Albert at the base of the stairs. This was set upon a revolving plinth so that as Queen Victoria went upstairs to bed, the statue could rotate so that his eyes could follow her path. This was not far from a portrait of Prince Albert painted so that, again, his eyes could follow Queen Victoria around the room.
We had some insight as to how the Victorians spent their time elaborating the household items of the time, for example putting a rams head on wheels so that it could be rolled up and down the dining table as a snuff box.
Through into the dining room, where the King still entertains, previous visitors include Florence Nightingale, Eisenhower and the Tsar and Tsarina of Russia. King Charles keeps up his mother’s tradition of having a piper play to the guests after dinner, and his late mothers piper Paul Burns who also played at the funeral, currently has the task.
Exquisite priceless paintings line all the walls as we learn that Lancier was a great friend of Queen Victoria and regularly commissioned for paintings, as was German artist Franz Winterhalter who did portraits of the Queen, Prince Albert and their nine children.
We walk through the Page’s lobby, the highest ranking member of staff who is the last and first to see the monarch each day, then into a less formal family dining room. A place where the family take breakfast and afternoon tea with a glass case that holds what appears to be a set of silver cake slices but is actually a set of trowels that were used to lay some of the foundation stones. The original castle was actually where the front lawns are now but was knocked down as it was not a suitable size for Queen Victoria’s large family, a plaque marks the spot where it used to stand.
A moment of breath and anticipation as we’re told we are about to enter the room where the Queen’s last photograph was taken, our guide gives us a silent moment to take in the scene. Since the famous photograph, the carpet has been changed to stewart tartan and the chairs recovered to match the Victorian period but you can still imagine the late Queen stood by the fire, the only working one in the castle, to have her photo taken. Here again we are reminded of Queen Victorias love for Prince Albert with two paintings either side of the fire, one depicting how life was when Prince Albert was alive, and one now that he was dead, with Queen Victoria dressed in black sat on a horse.
The last room is the library, used by King Charles as an office and apparently for the late Queen Elizabeth to watch the racing on television, a small cosy room with views across the gardens.
The tour cost £100 and lasted 45 minutes but also includes access to grounds where King Charles is doing work on the gardens, creating a maze, a sunken garden and a row of autumnal trees.
Access to Balmoral Grounds and surrounding Cairns walks is possible during the summer months when the family are not in residence and unsurprisingly the largest Cairn is a granite pyramid with the first stone laid by Queen Victoria, a Cairn to the memory of Prince Albert overlooking the valley beyond.
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