page_title: Osborne House
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Osborne House / History
caption_attribution_description: English: The Pavilion Wing of Osborne House from the south-west. Osborne House is a summer home and rural retreat near East Cowes on the Isle of Wight, designed for Queen Victoria by her husband Prince Albert, and built between 1845 and 1851. The house is a grade I listed building in England.This is a photo of listed building number 1223802.
context_page_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. Prince Albert designed the house himself in the style of an Italian Renaissance palazzo. The builder was Thomas Cubitt, the London architect and builder whose company built the main facade of Buckingham Palace for the royal couple in 1847. An earlier smaller house on the site was demolished to make way for a 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. Following her death, King Edward VII, who had never liked Osborne, presented the house to the state on coronation day in 1902, with the royal pavilion being retained as a private museum to Queen Victoria. From 1903 until 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.
context_section_description: Queen Victoria and Prince Albert bought Osborne House on the Isle of Wight from Lady Isabella Blachford in October 1845. They wanted a home removed from the stresses of court life. Queen Victoria had spent two holidays on the Isle of Wight as a young girl, when her mother, the then Duchess of Kent, rented Norris Castle, the estate next door to Osborne. The setting of the three-storey Georgian house appealed to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert; in particular, the views of the Solent reminded Albert of the Bay of Naples in Italy. They soon realised that the house was too small for their needs. They decided with advisors to replace the house with a new, larger residence.
  The new Osborne House was built between 1845 and 1851 in the style of the Italian Renaissance, complete with two belvedere towers. Prince Albert designed the house himself in conjunction with Thomas Cubitt, the London architect and builder whose company also built the main facade of Buckingham Palace. The couple paid for much of the new house's furnishings by the sale of the Royal Pavilion at Brighton. The Prince Consort participated directly in the laying out of the estate, gardens and woodlands to prove his knowledge of forestry and landscaping. At the more official royal residences, he had been overruled by the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, who had official responsibilities for the grounds. Below the gardens on Osborne Bay was a private beach, where the Queen kept her own private bathing machine. According to a news report, "The queen's bathing machine was unusually ornate, with a front verandah and curtains which would conceal her until she had entered the water. The interior had a changing room and a plumbed-in WC".
  The house's original square wing was known as 'The Pavilion,' containing the principal and royal apartments on the ground and first floors, respectively. The principal apartments, particularly, hold reminders of Victoria's dynastic links with the other European royal families. The Billiard Room holds a massive porcelain vase that was a gift of the Russian Tsar. The Billiard Room, Queen's Dining Room, and the Drawing Room on the ground floor all express grandeur.
  In marked contrast is the more homely and unassuming décor of the royal apartments on the first floor. These include the Prince's Dressing Room, the Queen's Sitting Room, the Queen's Bedroom, and the children's nurseries. Intended for private, domestic use, these rooms were made as comfortable as possible. Both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were determined to bring up their children in a natural and loving environment. They allowed the royal children to visit their parents' bedrooms frequently, at a time when children of aristocrats often lived at a remove from their parents in nurseries, joining them occasionally in public rooms, rather than in shared intimate spaces.
  The 'main wing' was added later: it contains the household accommodation and council and audience chambers. The final addition to the house was a wing built between 1890 and 1891. This wing was designed by John Lockwood Kipling, father of the poet Rudyard Kipling. On the ground floor, it includes the famous Durbar Room, named after an anglicised version of the Hindi word durbar, meaning court. The Durbar Room was built for state functions; it was decorated by Bhai Ram Singh in an elaborate and intricate style, and has a carpet from Agra. It now holds gifts Queen Victoria received on her Golden and Diamond jubilees. These include engraved silver and copper vases, Indian armour, and a model of an Indian palace. The first floor of the new wing was for the sole use of Princess Beatrice and her family. Beatrice was the Queen's youngest daughter, and she lived near Victoria during her life.
  Osborne House expresses numerous associations with the British Raj and India, housing a collection of paintings of Indian persons and scenes, painted at Queen Victoria's request by Rudolf Swoboda. These include  depictions of Indians resident or visiting Britain in the 19th century, and scenes painted in India when Swoboda trave
caption: The Pavilion Wing from the south-west
exif: {"Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 6.2.1 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2017:05:31 21:41:49", "Image ExifOffset": "204", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "922", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "13105", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/160", "EXIF FNumber": "8", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Standard Output Sensitivity", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2017:05:27 11:45:15", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2017:05:27 11:45:15", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "915241/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "6", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "471/50", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "167/100", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "41/2", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "68269609/32768", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "68269609/32768", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "3", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "31", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[18, 55, 14/5, 4]", "EXIF LensMake": "FUJIFILM", "EXIF LensModel": "XF18-55mmF2.8-4 R LM OIS", "EXIF LensSerialNumber": "53U12562"}