The Queen’s House

The ”queen” in the name of Queen’s House refers to Anne of Denmark, wife of James I. 

The house was designed for her by Inigo Jones, Surveyor of the King’s Works. 

After her death in 1619, it remained unfinished and thatched over at ground-floor level until 1629. 

Jones completed it around 1635 for another queen, queen Henrietta Maria (wife of Charles I). 

East and west bridges were added later, in 1662. 

Jones used classical, Ionic orders, together with geometrically measured spaces to create a structure of harmonious proportions.

This is something he later would become famous for, as he repeated this style when designing the Banqueting Hall at Whitehall and later at Wilton House. 

Beginning in the 18th century, his ideas were taken up by that time’s designers and architects, resulting in the widely spread Georgian style. 

Jones’ aesthetics laid the foundation for English Palladianism, a style fashionable in Britain between 1715 and 1760. 

The name comes from Andrea Palladio, one of Italy’s most imitated architects. 

A few years before he began building the Queen’s House, Inigo Jones had visited Italy to study art, architecture, and philosophy. 

When he returned to England, he brought with him Palladio’s aesthetic principles, based on harmony, detail and proportion. 

The symmetrical shape of the Queen’s House was very different from the red-brick palaces of the time, and through this contrast, the new building appeared very fashionable. 

The centrepiece of the house is the Great Hall, shaped as a perfect cube in the heart of the building, with a first-floor gallery overlooking a black-and-white marble floor. 

Another famous architectural detail is the Tulip Stairs, a geometric spiral stairway that ascends through the building, beneath a glass lantern. 

This was the first centrally unsupported spiral stair in Britain; each tread is cantilevered from the wall and supported by the stair below. 

In recent years, the Queen’s House has exhibited some of Royal Museums Greenwich’s finest artworks, including paintings by Gainsborough, Reynolds, Hodges, Hogarth, and the van de Veldes. 

It’s also home to the famous Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I, which marks the most famous military conflict of her reign – the failed invasion of England by the Spanish Armada in summer 1588. 

This painting is on permanent public display on the site of the original Greenwich Palace, which was also the birthplace of Elizabeth I.

Queen’s House