ing’s
allery.
HIS magnificent gallery, the finest of all the state rooms at Kensington Palace, was designed and built by Sir Christopher Wren for William III. about the year 1693. It owes much of its architectural effect to the great architect’s wonderful knowledge and appreciation of proportion—an element too often disregarded in buildings of modern times. Its length is 96 feet, its breadth 21 feet 6 inches, and its height 18 feet to the top of the cornice, and 19 feet 8 inches to the highest point of the ceiling. It is, therefore, 12 feet longer than the already-described Queen Mary’s Gallery, 2 feet higher, but of the same width. Compared with it, the “King’s or Cartoon Gallery” at Hampton Court, built by Wren almost exactly at the same time, it is 21 feet less long, 3 feet less wide, and 10 feet less high.
In relation to it the following items from the old accounts, dating from about the year 1693, are interesting:
“Item to Richard Hawkesmore, Clerk of the Workes, for making up an account [an estimate?] of the King’s New Gallery at Kensington—£5.”
“More to him for Pasteboard and other Materialls for making a modell of the said Gallery for the King—£5 2s.”