Royal Mews

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.

[2] 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).

[3] Bred at the Royal Stud at Hampton Court, these horses pulled state carriages in England for the next two hundred years (except for a hiatus during the Napoleonic wars when George III used black stallions in protest at the French occupation of Hanover).

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.

[4] 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.

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 main quadrangle was laid out with coach houses on the east side, and stable blocks (alternating with harness and forage rooms) on the west.

In 1855 Queen Victoria established a Buckingham Palace Royal Mews School, for the education of the workers' children.

In 1904 the Crown Equerry wrote to the Office of Works to request the conversion of 'two small coach-houses in the Back Mews' into 'a suitable Motor House [...] with a Lantern roof, hot water heating apparatus and electric lighting'.

George VI made more disposals after the Second World War: for example, sixteen plain Edwardian town coaches were sold off at this time (just one remained, stored away at Windsor; it was later rediscovered, glazed and restored to royal use).

The complement of horses in the Royal Mews today includes around a dozen Windsor Greys and eighteen Cleveland Bays.

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.

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.