Frogmore House was built in the 1680s and in 1792 the house and estate were bought by George III for his wife Queen Charlotte, although the land had formed part of the Windsor royal hunting ground since the reign of Henry VIII.[1] Charlotte engaged James Wyatt to redesign the house and sought the advice of her Vice-Chamberlain, William Price, regarding the redevelopment of the grounds.[a][3] Price’s brother Uvedale, an early exponent of the Picturesque, clearly influenced the design.[2] In 1840, Frogmore was inherited by the Duchess of Kent and, following her death in 1861, by her daughter, Queen Victoria.[2] The estate became a favoured, almost sacred,[4] retreat; after burying her mother in a mausoleum overlooking the lake, the Queen commissioned another, the Royal Mausoleum, for her husband Albert, Prince Consort and for herself, after Albert’s death in 1861.[5]
During her long widowhood, when she rarely visited London, Victoria spent much of her time at Windsor and at Frogmore.[6] She undertook further building work in the gardens, employing Samuel Sanders Teulon to construct a teahouse, and engaging Thomas Willement to redecorate the Gothic Ruin, originally designed by Wyatt and Princess Elizabeth.[5] In this setting Victoria placed the Indian Kiosk, and in her later years would often undertake correspondence in a tent set up nearby, attended by her Indian servant Abdul Karim.[5]
The first of two mausoleums within the Frogmore Gardens is the burial place of Queen Victoria's mother, Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, the Duchess of Kent. The Mausoleum was designed by the architect A J Humbert, to a concept design by Prince Albert's favourite artist, Professor Ludwig Gruner.[10]
In the latter years of her life, the Duchess lived in Frogmore House and in the 1850s, construction began on a beautiful domed 'temple' in the grounds of the estate. The top portion of the finished building was intended to serve as a summer-house for the Duchess during her lifetime, while the lower level was destined as her final resting place. The Duchess died at Frogmore House on 16 March 1861 before the summer-house was completed so the upper chamber became part of the mausoleum and now contains a statue of the Duchess by William Theed (1864).[11]
Royal Mausoleum
The Royal Mausoleum with the Royal Burial Ground in front
The second mausoleum in the grounds of Frogmore, just a short distance from the Duchess of Kent's Mausoleum, is the much larger Royal Mausoleum, the burial place of Queen Victoria and her consort, Prince Albert.[12] Queen Victoria and her husband had long intended to construct a special resting place for them both, instead of the two of them being buried in one of the traditional resting places of British Royalty, such as Westminster Abbey or St. George's Chapel, Windsor. The mausoleum for the Queen's mother was being constructed at Frogmore in 1861 when Prince Albert died in December of the same year. Within a few days of his death, proposals for the mausoleum were being drawn up by the same designers involved in the Duchess of Kent's Mausoleum: Professor Gruner and A. J. Humbert.[13]
Work commenced in March 1862. The dome was made by October and the building was consecrated in December 1862, although the decoration was not finished until August 1871. The building is in the form of a Greek cross. The exterior was inspired by Italian Romanesque buildings, the walls are of granite and Portland stone and the roof is covered with Australian copper. The internal decoration is in the style of Albert's favourite painter, Raphael, an example of Victoriana at its most opulent. The interior walls are mainly faced in Portuguese red marble, a gift from King Luis I of Portugal, a cousin of both Victoria and Albert, and are inlaid with other marbles from around the world. The monumentaltomb itself was designed by Baron Carlo Marochetti. It features recumbent marble effigies of the Queen and Prince Albert. The sarcophagus was made from a single piece of flawless grey Aberdeengranite. The Queen's effigy was made at the same time, but was not put in the mausoleum until after her funeral.[14]
Only Victoria and Albert are interred there, but the mausoleum contains other memorials. Among those is a monument to Princess Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse-Darmstadt (1843–1878), Victoria's second daughter, who died of diphtheria shortly after her youngest daughter May (1874–1878).[15] In the centre of the chapel is a monument to Edward, Duke of Kent, Victoria's father. He died in 1820 and is buried in St George's Chapel, Windsor.[16]
One of the sculptures is of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in Saxon Dress, commissioned after Prince Albert's death and executed by William Theed (1804–91). It was unveiled on 20 May 1867 in Windsor Castle, and was moved to the Royal Mausoleum in 1938.[17] The plaster model, which was exhibited in 1868 at the Royal Academy of Arts, is on loan from the Royal Collection to the National Portrait Gallery, London.[18] Queen Victoria recorded in her diary that the idea for it came from Victoria, Princess Royal (her eldest child) and that the inscription on the plinth is a quotation from The Deserted Village by Oliver Goldsmith.[19] The inscription on the plinth alludes to the poet's lament for the passing of the imagined village of 'Sweet Auburn'.[20]
The building has been closed to the public since 2007 because it is structurally unsound. The foundations are waterlogged, and the lower elements of the building are disintegrating. In February 2018, the Royal Household announced it was undertaking repair work on the mausoleum; the work is expected to be complete by 2023.[21]
The house and gardens are usually open to the public on about six days each year, usually around Easter and the August Bank Holiday. The Royal Burial Ground may be viewed from around its perimeter on the days that the gardens are open to the public. The Duchess of Kent's mausoleum may also be viewed externally, but is never open to the public.
Gallery
Frogmore House
Mausoleum of the Duchess of Kent
Mausoleum of Queen Victoria & Albert, Prince Consort
J. W. Burrow on the use of an image of the sculpture of the Queen and Prince Albert in Saxon dress.[17]
Footnotes
^Charlotte’s ambition was to create a Paradis Terrestre, a secluded enclave enabling an escape from the rituals of court and modelled on the, almost contemporary, Hameau de la Reine at Versailles.[2]
