HIS aspect of Kensington Palace, which we almost hesitate to dignify with the name of “Front” consists mainly of two distinct portions: first, the “return” or end of Wren’s “Gallery Building,” on the left, distinguished by its fine red brickwork and its deep cornice, similar to the same on the south side; and on the right, the building tacked on to it, built for George I. by Kent, as already mentioned on [page 23], and further referred to on pages 86, 93, and 99. We must frankly say—and few are likely to differ from us—that Kent’s building here is about as ugly and inartistic as anything of the sort could be. It is not alone the common, dirty, yellow, stock brick with which it is built, but the whole shape and design, with its pretentious pediment, ponderous and hideous, the prototype of acres upon acres of ghastly modern London structures in the solid “workhouse” style. It is amazing that Kent, with so excellent a model of plainness and simplicity in Wren’s buildings on each side, should have stuck in this ill-formed, abortive block between them. Fortunately, his taste as a decorator was greatly superior to his powers as an architect, so that the interior portions of this building of his, which consists of additional state-rooms, are not entirely deficient in merit, as we shall see. The three central windows are those of the “King’s Drawing Room,” (see [page 99]).
To the north-west of the structure comprising Kent’s state apartments lies another of the older parts of the Palace, a low building of two storeys, in deep russet brick, of uniform appearance, with fifteen windows in a row on the first floor. This range, built, or, at any rate, altered and improved by Wren, and forming the east side of Princess’s Court, comprises the state and habitable rooms of Queen Mary and Queen Anne. At its extreme north end is the “Queen’s Staircase,” now the public entrance to the state rooms.
