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Osborne House was ‘a place of one’s own, quiet and retired’, for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, they found tranquillity on the Isle of Wight, far from the formality of court life at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle. When visitors see Osborne for the first time, knowing that the young Victoria and Albert had wanted a modest country home, they are surprised by its scale and magnificence.

The house is set on rising ground overlooking the Solent, where the ships that helped Britannia rule the waves sailed to and fro. Two tall towers in an Italian style dominate, above fountains set on terraces and rolling wooded parkland.

Victoria married Albert in 1840 and they bought Osborne, then a relatively small house, five years later. Its ambitious replacement was the work of Thomas Cubitt, best known for his buildings in London, and the result was a house Italianate in style rather than in the Gothic idiom one often associates with the Victorians.

The interiors at Osborne abound with opulence and grandeur – the Indian room, marbled pillars, gilding, statuary, and magnificent paintings remind us that this family had links with all the crowned heads of Europe. Despite the idea of cosy domesticity at Osborne, the formality of monarchy was never far away. The royal household was organised according to a strict regime, the formality of which extended to the preparation of the Queen’s table and her meals.

Situated directly below the Dining Room is the newly open Table Deckers’ Room and the Servery, where one can see how these preparations were carried out. The role of the Table Decker (a post which has now disappeared), is described in a book of 1848, as ‘to superintend the arrangement of Her Majesty’s table, placing everything in perfect order previously to the dinner being served’. This would have included responsibility for ornate table decorations.

Like the house, the gardens at Osborne were in formal Italianate style, and were designed by both Cubitt and the Prince. The Walled Garden produced fruit and flowers for the House and is being restored as part of the Contemporary Heritage Gardens scheme launched by English Heritage. It is with a view to recapturing the spirit of the garden as it was then, that Rupert Golby has been chosen to re-design it. Triumphal arches of Victoria plum festooned with climbing roses, honeysuckle, and clematis will be one of the features of the new garden, and the cold frame will be filled with Parma violets, Queen Victoria’s favourite flower.

The completion of Osborne, in 1851, coincided with the Great Exhibition – Albert’s greatest achievement – held in the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park. Victoria and Albert with their many children embodied the family ideal and helped restore respect for the monarchy after the low esteem in which it was held under George IV and William IV. Although of necessity State affairs took place at Osborne, it was essentially a family holiday home.

The Queen had her first experience of sea bathing there – she liked it until she put her head under the water. Victoria and Albert’s nine children played freely in their own little home, Swiss Cottage, which was given to them on Victoria’s birthday in 1854. As a memento of their youth, Victoria commissioned marble sculptures of their infant arms, which still lie in ghostly display in the Nursery Sitting Room.

A new routine helped ease painful memories after Albert died, and Victoria took great comfort in the company of her youngest daughter. Princess Beatrice lived at Osborne in the Durbar Wing which was built in 1890-91 by craftsmen from India.

Queen Victoria died on 22 January 1901 on a couch bed in the Queen’s Bedroom, surrounded by her children. A newspaper report on the day of her death described the people of Cowes as ‘stunned by the calamity, which affects them peculiarly’, an indication of the special relationship that had grown up between this community and their monarch. The extent to which Victoria herself had come to find a sense of freedom and repose at the Isle of Wight is made equally clear. The report goes on to state that she would often drive through the streets there: ‘The country generally did not know of these drives, they were taken as a mark of the Queen’s confidence in the townsfolk. She went about unattended.’

Shortly after her death Edward VII gave Osborne House to the nation, and with recent restoration, it has become one of the most evocative memorials to Britain’s longest reigning monarch. However, the best way to find out more about this unique and special house is by visiting their Website.

Filmed Here:

Mrs Brown starring Dame Judi Dench and Billy Connolly.

Voted third best property in the 1999 NPI Awards for the South East.

All Photographs - 'Copyright English Heritage'.

Opening Times - 2010:

House:
1st April - 30th September: daily, 10 am - 5 pm. Last admission 4 pm
1st - 31st October: daily, 10 am - 4 pm
1st November - 20th March: Wednesday - Sunday, 10 am - 4 pm. Guided tours only. Last tour 2.30 pm
Christmas Tour Season:
10th November - 6th January: Wednesday - Sunday, Last tour 3 pm
Pre-booking essential on +44 (0)1983 200022
Closed 24th - 26th December & 1st January
Note:
Closes early 20th, 21st, 27th & 28th July and 6th August for Special Events

Admission Prices - 2010:

House & Grounds:
Adult - £9.80
Child (5-15yrs) - £4.90
Child (under 5yrs) - Free
Concessions - £7.40
Family (2+3) - £24.50

Grounds only:
Adult - £5.90
Child (5-15yrs) - £3
Child (under 5yrs) - Free
Concessions - £4.40
Family (2+3) - £14.80

Groups (11+) 15% discount. Tour leader and driver have free entry. 1 extra free place for every aditional 20 paying.