There are three royal thrones in the Throne Room. See if you can work out who sat on each one. There’s one that’s smaller than the others - because the woman it was made for - Queen Victoria - wasn’t very tall.

Today, the Throne Room forms a grand background for official photographs, including the Coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla in 2023 and the wedding of Prince William and Catherine, Princess of Wales in 2011.

The Ballroom is the largest room in the Palace - big enough to hold 84 double-decker buses. Nowadays the room is used to host state banquets when there is an official visit by a head of state, for example a king or queen from another country. 

There is a hidden door in the State Rooms from the Royal Family's private apartments. See if you can spot the door in the White Drawing Room when you visit. The large painting above the fireplace in this room shows Queen Alexandra. She was wife of Edward VII  - who was Queen Victoria's eldest son.

There are many statues in the Marble Hall. Make sure to have a look at the sculpture at the bottom of the stairs. It’s by a famous sculptor called Canova. The statue shows the Roman god of war - Mars, with Venus, goddess of love. The statue is over 2 metres tall and was carved from a single block of marble. See if you can spot two other statues carved by the same person in this room.

You'll see this room after you've climbed the Grand Staircase near the start of your visit to Buckingham Palace. On one of the walls there’s a painting of two daughters of Philip II, King of Spain. How many animals can you spot in the painting with the Princesses?

This space was built for George IV to show off his collection of paintings. Look out for the painting of the Shipbuilder and his wife, by the artist Rembrandt. You can see her burst into the room, interrupting her husband with a very urgent message!

When you’re in the Music Room look carefully at the tall dark blue columns. If they were made of stone they would have been very heavy. But the secret is they are actually a type of plaster that is blended so the swirls of colours look like stone – in this case a blue stone called lapis lazuli. This is a technique known as scagliola (pronounced scah-lee-o-la). In the past more of the rooms in the Palace had columns made to look like different types of stone, but most of them have been painted over now.

Many of the State Rooms have amazing decorated and gilded ceilings that are easy to miss if you don’t stop and look up occasionally (just make sure you aren’t in other people’s way at the time!). In the Music Room the ceiling is decorated with rose, shamrock and thistle - the national emblems for England, Ireland and Scotland. 

There are 500 clocks at Buckingham Palace of all shapes and sizes, which show the changing fashions over the centuries and the tastes and interests of successive monarchs. Among them are musical clocks, organ clocks, astronomical clocks, and mechanical clocks. When the clocks change in spring and autumn it takes over 50 hours for the horologists (people who look after clocks) to update them all in Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

Did you know the gardens at Buckingham Palace are a huge 16 hectares (that’s about 16 rugby pitches or 16 Trafalgar Squares all lined up next to each other). It’s hard to imagine a garden that large in the centre of such a busy city isn’t it? It's full of lots of wildlife – including birds, fish and insects.

During the Summer Opening of Buckingham Palace look out for some wildlife and their different habitats using our garden trail (one of our helpful Wardens can give you a copy before you walk down the garden path). The trail also tells the stories of some of the exciting events that have occurred in the garden.