Kew Palace, Surrey
Historic Royal Palaces has done a good job restoring Kew Palace, but work is still needed to improve the interpretation, writes Jane Morris
When Kew Palace, George III's 'family' home, shut in 1996 few people believed that we would wait ten years to see it reopen.
But the Heritage Lottery Fund turned down Historic Royal Palaces' (HRP) first application for a grant towards its restoration, and it has taken most of the remaining years to find the £6.6m needed to carry out the project (the lottery did provide £1.6m in the end).
A few months before opening, HRP was still struggling to raise the final £700,000. But at last George III's retreat - and the place where he lived out his so-called 'madness' - has reopened to the public.
The entrance fee to Kew Palace is £5, and on top of the £11.75 now charged to get into Kew Gardens (run by the Royal Botanic Gardens), this is, through little fault of HRP, one of London's most expensive historic visitor attractions. The immediate question is whether it is attractive enough to make Kew Gardens' visitors reach into their pockets a second time (no combined tickets are available).
On the evidence of the first wet weekend it was open the answer must be yes, since this revived historic attraction was certainly busy. Many people were waiting an hour for a timed ticket for the house, which thanks to narrow corridors and stairs needs the numbers of people controlled to stop gridlock.
Apart from the house, there is also a small graphic display in the 'welcome centre' with concise information on Georgian history, and the story of the house, plus a re-creation of an 18th-century garden to delight horticultural enthusiasts.
But despite these attractions, the palace has an air of unfinished business: an impressive restoration but with thin interpretation: intriguing questions are raised but not answered. There are statements such as 'in 1818 the house fell into disuse' - but without further explanation.
Presumably, much of the money HRP spent has gone on the renovation and conservation, which was vital to stop the building's steady slide into the banks of the Thames. And the interpretation is easily fixed: the core of the project is all there, it is just that something has got lost in translation between the knowledge of the conservators, curators and historians on the project and us, the visitors.
The challenge for interpretation in historic houses is how much you go for period flavour and accuracy and how far you become a museum. This display has gone for the royal-family-house/period accuracy approach, with case displays kept few and far between for the most valuable or fragile objects: the stained waistcoat the king was wearing at his death, for example.
This seems sensible - it is not that big a house - and in many ways is successful. Clearly no one wanted to overload the smallish rooms with too much clutter, though this is often a difficult (and subjective) balance to get right.
The main focus of the interpretation is the story of George, his 'madness' (in fact the rare disease porphyria), his wife Queen Charlotte and their 15 children. Paintings, engravings and objects associated with the family are displayed throughout the ground and first floors, while the upper floor is an almost untouched time capsule: the cell-like bedrooms of two of the princesses, which have not been on public display for 200 years.
Throughout the period rooms, the main method of interpretation is an innovative audio broadcast with a loose narrative structure, dealing with the king's family life, interests, his illness and key events such as the death of his wife. Unfortunately, with a full house, this was hard to hear over the usual low-level chatter. Most visitors only listened to snatches, and the interplay of the actors' voices meant it was difficult to work out who is who.
Labels are kept to a bare, and very discreet, minimum. So discreet, in fact, that without my paper guide (full guidebooks are not yet available) I managed to get confused about which room I was in. I was convinced for a while that a beautiful, dark panelled room was the king's library because, well, it looked like a library.
Then I realised the library was in fact the opening room with displays about George III's relationship with Joseph Banks, an adviser in the early development of Kew, and William Chambers, the architect who designed many buildings for Kew. In this room, of course, George III would have sat and studied: hence the drawings and botanical specimens. It is hard to say whether others shared my dimness, but I fear they might have.
On the plus side, the rooms and gardens look lovely: simple, evocative and surprisingly homely for a king. One example, the king's dining room, is a study in how less can truly be more: it is obvious what it was used for, while the labels give interesting facts: despite the relaxed air of the house, the children still sat at informal meals in order of rank. Did I learn about George III, his family and home? Absolutely. Did I want to know more? Well, yes.
The other aim of the project is to explain more about the process of discovery and renovation, and presumably to do it without bogging visitors down in too much technical detail. This is an admirable aim, though again it whets rather than satisfies appetites.
Some demonstrations - an almost wordless stripped section of wall, showing the way linen was stretched over batons, then lining paper and wallpaper laid on top, and finished with a flock frieze, did the job well and needed no further explanation.
In other places (how did they decide on the carpets and fabrics, who made them, which bits were the 1631 house, what about kitchens/bathrooms/lavatories, where did the servants hide themselves away?) I had to turn to the room stewards.
In fact, these stewards are the star turn of the interpretation: whoever picked and trained them deserves a medal. Despite the crowds, and signage so subtle that one in three people tried to turn against the flow, they valiantly offered information and the sort of factual detail and informed speculation on some of the more imponderable questions (were the young princesses happy in their strangely convent-like rooms?) that brought the visit to life.
So yes, Kew Palace is worth seeing, but go when it's quiet - and if you want more information, talk very nicely to the stewards.
Jane Morris writes about museums and galleries and is a judge of the European Museum of the Year
Project data
Cost: £6.6m
Main funders: Historic Royal Palaces £2.5m, Heritage Lottery Fund £1.6m, private benefactors and foundations £1.75m-plus
Architect: Purcell Miller Triton
Exhibition design: Metaphor
Audiovisual design: New Angle
Lighting: DHA
Construction management: Gardiner and Theobold
Historic Royal Palaces has done a good job restoring Kew Palace, but work is still needed to improve the interpretation, writes Jane Morris
When Kew Palace, George III's 'family' home, shut in 1996 few people believed that we would wait ten years to see it reopen.
But the Heritage Lottery Fund turned down Historic Royal Palaces' (HRP) first application for a grant towards its restoration, and it has taken most of the remaining years to find the £6.6m needed to carry out the project (the lottery did provide £1.6m in the end).
A few months before opening, HRP was still struggling to raise the final £700,000. But at last George III's retreat - and the place where he lived out his so-called 'madness' - has reopened to the public.
The entrance fee to Kew Palace is £5, and on top of the £11.75 now charged to get into Kew Gardens (run by the Royal Botanic Gardens), this is, through little fault of HRP, one of London's most expensive historic visitor attractions. The immediate question is whether it is attractive enough to make Kew Gardens' visitors reach into their pockets a second time (no combined tickets are available).
On the evidence of the first wet weekend it was open the answer must be yes, since this revived historic attraction was certainly busy. Many people were waiting an hour for a timed ticket for the house, which thanks to narrow corridors and stairs needs the numbers of people controlled to stop gridlock.
Apart from the house, there is also a small graphic display in the 'welcome centre' with concise information on Georgian history, and the story of the house, plus a re-creation of an 18th-century garden to delight horticultural enthusiasts.
But despite these attractions, the palace has an air of unfinished business: an impressive restoration but with thin interpretation: intriguing questions are raised but not answered. There are statements such as 'in 1818 the house fell into disuse' - but without further explanation.
Presumably, much of the money HRP spent has gone on the renovation and conservation, which was vital to stop the building's steady slide into the banks of the Thames. And the interpretation is easily fixed: the core of the project is all there, it is just that something has got lost in translation between the knowledge of the conservators, curators and historians on the project and us, the visitors.
The challenge for interpretation in historic houses is how much you go for period flavour and accuracy and how far you become a museum. This display has gone for the royal-family-house/period accuracy approach, with case displays kept few and far between for the most valuable or fragile objects: the stained waistcoat the king was wearing at his death, for example.
This seems sensible - it is not that big a house - and in many ways is successful. Clearly no one wanted to overload the smallish rooms with too much clutter, though this is often a difficult (and subjective) balance to get right.
The main focus of the interpretation is the story of George, his 'madness' (in fact the rare disease porphyria), his wife Queen Charlotte and their 15 children. Paintings, engravings and objects associated with the family are displayed throughout the ground and first floors, while the upper floor is an almost untouched time capsule: the cell-like bedrooms of two of the princesses, which have not been on public display for 200 years.
Throughout the period rooms, the main method of interpretation is an innovative audio broadcast with a loose narrative structure, dealing with the king's family life, interests, his illness and key events such as the death of his wife. Unfortunately, with a full house, this was hard to hear over the usual low-level chatter. Most visitors only listened to snatches, and the interplay of the actors' voices meant it was difficult to work out who is who.
Labels are kept to a bare, and very discreet, minimum. So discreet, in fact, that without my paper guide (full guidebooks are not yet available) I managed to get confused about which room I was in. I was convinced for a while that a beautiful, dark panelled room was the king's library because, well, it looked like a library.
Then I realised the library was in fact the opening room with displays about George III's relationship with Joseph Banks, an adviser in the early development of Kew, and William Chambers, the architect who designed many buildings for Kew. In this room, of course, George III would have sat and studied: hence the drawings and botanical specimens. It is hard to say whether others shared my dimness, but I fear they might have.
On the plus side, the rooms and gardens look lovely: simple, evocative and surprisingly homely for a king. One example, the king's dining room, is a study in how less can truly be more: it is obvious what it was used for, while the labels give interesting facts: despite the relaxed air of the house, the children still sat at informal meals in order of rank. Did I learn about George III, his family and home? Absolutely. Did I want to know more? Well, yes.
The other aim of the project is to explain more about the process of discovery and renovation, and presumably to do it without bogging visitors down in too much technical detail. This is an admirable aim, though again it whets rather than satisfies appetites.
Some demonstrations - an almost wordless stripped section of wall, showing the way linen was stretched over batons, then lining paper and wallpaper laid on top, and finished with a flock frieze, did the job well and needed no further explanation.
In other places (how did they decide on the carpets and fabrics, who made them, which bits were the 1631 house, what about kitchens/bathrooms/lavatories, where did the servants hide themselves away?) I had to turn to the room stewards.
In fact, these stewards are the star turn of the interpretation: whoever picked and trained them deserves a medal. Despite the crowds, and signage so subtle that one in three people tried to turn against the flow, they valiantly offered information and the sort of factual detail and informed speculation on some of the more imponderable questions (were the young princesses happy in their strangely convent-like rooms?) that brought the visit to life.
So yes, Kew Palace is worth seeing, but go when it's quiet - and if you want more information, talk very nicely to the stewards.
Jane Morris writes about museums and galleries and is a judge of the European Museum of the Year
Project data
Cost: £6.6m
Main funders: Historic Royal Palaces £2.5m, Heritage Lottery Fund £1.6m, private benefactors and foundations £1.75m-plus
Architect: Purcell Miller Triton
Exhibition design: Metaphor
Audiovisual design: New Angle
Lighting: DHA
Construction management: Gardiner and Theobold
