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Palace

Osborne House

England · 19th century

Founded
1845
Style
Renaissance Revival architecture
Architect
Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Heritage status
Grade II* listed park and garden · Grade I listed building
Location
East Cowes
Coordinates
50.75053°, -1.27005°
Links
OpenStreetMap · Wikimedia Commons
Open on the map →Official website ↗Wikipedia ↗
Osborne House in England
Photo: Humac45 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Description

Osborne House is a former royal residence in East Cowes, Isle of Wight, United Kingdom. The house was built between 1845 and 1851 for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert as a summer home and rural retreat. Albert designed the house in the style of an Italian Renaissance palazzo. The builder was Thomas Cubitt, the London architect and builder whose company built the main façade of Buckingham Palace for the royal couple in 1847. An earlier smaller house on the Osborne site was demolished to make way for the new and far larger house, though the original entrance portico survives as the main gateway to the walled garden.

Queen Victoria died at Osborne House on 22 January 1901, aged 81. Following her death, King Edward VII, who had never liked Osborne, presented the house to the state on the day of his coronation, with the royal pavilion being retained as a private museum to Victoria. From 1903 to 1921, part of the estate around the stables was used as a junior officer training college for the Royal Navy, known as the Royal Naval College, Osborne. Another section of the house was used as a convalescent home for officers. In 1933, many of the temporary buildings at Osborne were demolished. In 1954, Queen Elizabeth II gave permission for the first floor rooms (the private apartments) in the royal pavilion to be opened to the public. In 1986, English Heritage assumed management of Osborne House. In 1989, the second floor of the house was also opened to the public.

The house is listed Grade I on the National Heritage List for England, and the landscaped park and gardens are listed Grade II* on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

Text adapted from “Osborne House” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

In the rankings

Osborne House ranks #137 of 9,902 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #12 of the 397 mapped in England. Founded 1845, it is older than 9% of the atlas's dated landmarks, one of 782 atlas entries founded in the 19th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 37,018 times in the last 60 days, more than 99% of the atlas. 18 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Portsmouth, 14 km away. See how England compares in the castle statistics.

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