Members of the public are getting their chance to have their own balcony moment at Buckingham Palace… almost.
For the first time ever the centre room behind the palace’s famous balcony will open to groups of visitors.
Next week, ticket holders will have the opportunity to look around the room where the royal family gather on big occasions before stepping out to see the public.
But rather than being allowed out onto the balcony the doors will remain shut and they’ll have the chance to look at the view down the Mall through the net curtains instead.
The tour of the East Wing is a new addition to the annual palace summer opening.
Image: Pic: PA
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Almost 6,000 tickets were made available but were sold out within hours of going on sale in April.
Caroline de Guitaut, surveyor of the King’s works of art, said: “It was Prince Albert’s idea to have a balcony at Buckingham Palace, because he saw it as a way of enabling the royal family to connect with the people, and of course that’s exactly how, in a sense, it continues to be used on important occasions.
“But it began to be used very early on in Queen Victoria’s reign, from 1851 waving off the troops to the Crimean War and welcoming them back on return.”
Image: Pic: PA
Image: Pic: PA
Image: Pic: PA
The palace’s East Wing was built between 1847 and 1849 to accommodate Queen Victoria’s growing family, and the development enclosed the former open horse-shoe shaped royal residence.
For the past five years it’s been undergoing refurbishment work. More than 3,500 pieces of art had to be removed and safely stored. Around 47,000 floorboards had to be removed and re-laid.
Guided tours of the East Wing will take visitors along much of the 240ft-long principal corridor, and include the yellow drawing room and centre room behind the balcony.
Image: The red balcony drapes in place at Buckingham Palace.
Pic: PA
The yellow drawing room features an oriental-style fireplace from George IV’s seaside pleasure palace – the Brighton Pavilion, an elaborate gilded curtain rail and even some of the pavilion’s wallpaper that was discovered in storage by George V’s wife, Queen Mary and hung at her request.
Highlights in the centre room include a newly restored glass chandelier, shaped to resemble a lotus flower, and two Chinese 18th-century imperial silk wall hangings, presented to Victoria by Guangxu, Emperor of China, to mark her Diamond Jubilee in 1897.
While tickets for the East Wing tour are sold out, visitors with a standard ticket for the place’s state rooms will be able to tour the 19 rooms used by the royal family for official entertaining.
In the ballroom, they can view artist Jonathan Yeo’s new portrait of the King, with its striking red background.
A woman arrested on suspicion of neglect after an eight-year-old girl fell from the balcony of a block of flats will face no further action.
A 43-year-old woman had been held following the death of Minnie Rae Dunn after the incident in Portsmouth, Hampshire, in August last year.
But Hampshire Police confirmed she had been released without charge.
A spokesperson said: “We have been continuing to conduct a thorough investigation following the death of eight-year-old Minnie Rae Dunn in Portsmouth in August 2023.
“We were called at 6.50pm on Thursday, 24 August to reports that Minnie had fallen from a balcony on Wingfield Street, Portsmouth.
“We attended along with our colleagues from South Central Ambulance Service who treated Minnie, who subsequently died.
“At the current time, we do not believe that there was third-party involvement in Minnie’s death and a file will now be prepared for the coroner.
“Following our enquiries, a 43-year-old woman, who was arrested on suspicion of neglect of a child, has been released without charge and will face no further action.”
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Paying tribute to her daughter, Minnie’s mother Rebecca previously said in a statement: “My angel, I am going to miss your sassiness and the way you spoke your mind. Your big bright smile that always melted my heart will be missed so much.
“I have a hole shape in my heart that will always be there. My little angel fly high, I love you to the moon and back. Mummy.”
A British woman is in a critical condition in hospital after falling from a sixth-floor hotel balcony in Benidorm.
Her 40-year-old British husband, who was arrested in the early hours of Saturday morning on suspicion of attempted homicide by Spanish police, has been released from custody by a judge.
The tourists were staying at the four-star Rio Park, part of the Medplaya hotel chain. The alarm was raised just after midnight.
The woman, 36, remains in hospital in the nearby Villajoyosa and her condition was described as “critical” when she was first taken for treatment.
Sources close to the investigation were not able to say on Sunday whether the incident at the hotel was now being treated as an accident or attempted suicide or could be crime-related.
The same sources said the unnamed British man had been released after appearing before a judge in a closed court hearing in Benidorm.
He was freed without any protective measures such as the obligation to sign on at court or a ban on leaving the country, suggesting he was not being treated as a suspect.
Court workers could not be reached to provide an official statement.
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A spokesman for Spain’s National Police had earlier said after the incident: “Officers have arrested a British man on suspicion of attempted homicide after his wife, who is also British, plunged from the sixth-floor balcony of their hotel in Benidorm.
“The arrest is a preventative measure and it will be up to a judge to decide what happens next after the man appears before him in the next day or so.
“The couple were sharing the same room and we are talking about a foreigner who has no ties to Spain so we are under an obligation to make the arrest as we try to determine what happened.”
Local reports said witnesses had told police the man was in their hotel room and the woman on the balcony when she went over the edge.
The hotel where the incident happened is set in a quiet area of Benidorm just a five-minute walk from the Costa Blanca resort’s famous Levante Beach.
Scots holidaymaker Kirsty Maxwell died in a hotel plunge in Benidorm in April 2017.
Five British men were cleared of any involvement in her death after a long-running probe, with a regional court rejecting an appeal by her parents in July 2020 to persuade judges it was not an accident and overturn an earlier court decision to shelve the investigation.
