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Adult Learning


Kensington Palace was Queen Victoria's home for the first 18 years of her life. She was born here in 1819, christened in the Cupola Room, met Albert for the first time on the Stone Stairs and held her first Privy Council meeting in the Red Saloon. This spring, we’ll be taking advantage of this special Kensington connection with a variety of events, focusing on the life and loves of Queen Victoria, Britain’s longest reigning monarch.
Queen Victoria old

Programme of events 2012


Click on events for further information and booking. 

  • Becoming Queen - SOLD OUT
  • Let’s get ready to street party: celebration cake decoration - SOLD OUT
  • Magnificent obsession: Victoria and Albert and the death that changed the monarchy
  • Crown and camera: Victoria and Albert’s photographic collection
  • Let’s get ready to street party: bunting workshop
  • Victoria: love, life and clothes
  • History of Victorian cakes
  • Her Majesty, Mrs Brown


    Becoming Queen - SOLD OUT
    Evening Lecture
    With author and presenter Kate Williams

    Date        Wednesday 18 April
    Time        6.30pm – 8pm
    Cost        £12 / £10 HRP members

    ‘I will be good,’ promised the thirteen-year-old Victoria, when she understood that she would be Queen of the most powerful country in the world. But how did the daughter of the fourth son of George III become queen in 1837? In this talk, author Kate Williams will take the theme of her recent book Becoming Queen to relate the heartbreaking story of Princess Charlotte, the Queen who never was, and her impact on her successor Victoria. This is a tale of two heirs to the throne; two young women growing up forced to negotiate the tricky path between their own desires and the demand of duty to court and country. You will learn about the scandal and mechanisms of the corrupt and corpulent world of the Hanoverian dukes, setting the scene for Victoria’s emergence into a man’s world.

    Our perception of Queen Victoria is often coloured by portraits of her older widowed self. In this talk Kate Williams will reveal a youthful, energetic and vibrant woman, determined to battle for power.

    This event includes a drinks reception.

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    Let’s get ready to street party: celebration cake decoration - SOLD OUT
    With cake artist Rachel Mount

    Date        Saturday 21 April
    Time        10.30am – 4pm
    Cost        £65 / £60 HRP members

    When Queen Victoria married Prince Albert in February 1840, one of their wedding cakes is said to have measured three yards in circumference and weighed over 300lbs.

    Although we’re not suggesting such an ambitious undertaking, this workshop will draw on influences of Victorian cake decoration. The workshop will be led by cake artist Rachel Mount who will introduce you to sugar craft skills and professional cake decoration techniques including how to make sugar flowers and leaves as well as piping and painting. Rachel will provide each participant with an iced cake to work on during the workshop.

    Rachel Mount is London’s leading cake artist. Her cake sculptures have been exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts and Sotheby’s and she has taught her unique style of sugar craft at the V&A. From Japanese Vogue to American Elle her cutting-edge cake decoration has received global media acclaim.

    All materials will be provided. Beginners welcome, no previous experience necessary.

    This event includes light refreshments and entry to Kensington Palace.

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    Magnificent obsession: Victoria and Albert and the death that changed the monarchy
    Evening Lecture
    With writer and historian Helen Rappaport

    Date        Monday 23 April
    Time        6.30pm – 8pm
    Cost        £12 / £10 HRP members

    ‘My life as a happy one has ended! The world has gone for me!’
    — Queen Victoria, 20 December 1861

    When Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Prince Consort and husband of Queen Victoria died at 10.50pm on the night of 14 December 1861 at the age of only 42, the bells began tolling soon after at St Paul’s Cathedral. The whole nation woke up the next morning to this mournful sound, relayed from village to village and city to city across the country’s churches. The Queen and her nation were plunged into a state of grief so profound that this one untimely death would dramatically alter the shape of the British monarchy for the rest of the Queen’s reign.

    In this talk, author and historian Helen Rappaport will describe how Britain had not just lost a prince but had in effect lost a king, for Albert had performed that function in all but name for many years. Victoria’s mourning for her lost husband became so protracted, so fetishistic, that its like had never been seen before.

    This event includes a drinks reception.

    To book, click here. 

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    Let’s get ready to street party: bunting workshop
    With artist Xtina Lamb

    Date        Saturday 12 May
    Time       10.30am – 4pm
    Cost        £49 / £44 HRP members

    ‘A never-to-be-forgotten day. No one ever, I believe, has met with such an ovation as was given to me, passing through those six miles of streets…’ 
    — Queen Victoria, 22 June 1897

    In 1897, the streets of London and many other towns and villages were festooned with bunting, garlands of flowers and triumphal arches to celebrate Victoria’s 60 years on the throne. In this workshop, you will be creating your own contemporary bunting using vintage fabrics and printing methods. The workshop will be run by artist Xtina Lamb who works mainly with Print Gocco, a Japanese screenprinting machine and who produces bright and eye-catching bunting as part of her work.

    You will choose and cut your fabrics, print them with letters and symbols, then sew them into beautiful, fun banners. They would make a unique gift or a keepsake for events and celebrations of all kinds, including the Jubilee in 2012.

    All materials will be provided. No previous experience is necessary.

    This event includes light refreshments and entry to Kensington Palace.

    To book, click here. 

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    Crown and camera: Victoria and Albert’s photographic collection
    Evening Lecture
    With Dr Sophie Gordon, Senior Curator of Photographs, Royal Collection

    Date        Monday 14 May
    Time        6.30pm – 8pm
    Cost        £12 / £10 HRP members

    ‘What a blessed invention photography is!’
    — Queen Victoria, 20 March 1859

    Join Sophie Gordon for a talk on the history of early photography in this country through the images of Victoria and Albert as both collectors and sitters.

    There are over 400,000 photographic images in the Royal Collection. One of the earliest photographs is of Prince Albert, taken by William Constable in 1842. From the 1840s, both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert began to show very active enthusiasm for photography. Prince Albert supported the new medium and helped photography to receive greater scientific, artistic and public attention, particularly through his involvement in the Great Exhibition of 1851.

    While Prince Albert’s principal interests lay with science and the arts, Queen Victoria’s taste was for portraits of people, her close family, relations and people from all walks of life.

    Many albums offer a fascinating portrait of society during Queen Victoria’s reign, from British and European royalty to the gardeners and seamstresses who worked for the Queen.

    This event includes a drinks reception.

    To book, click here. 

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    Victoria: love, life and clothes
    Evening Lecture
    With HRP Curator Deirdre Murphy

    Date        Monday 21 May
    Time        6.30pm – 8pm
    Cost         £12 / £10 HRP members

    Fashion was not one of Queen Victoria’s greatest interests. She nevertheless understood the importance of dress in shaping public opinion, and held strong views on the subject. As she warned the Prince of Wales in 1858, ‘we do expect, that you will never wear anything
    extravagant or slang.’

    The few surviving garments from Victoria’s early wardrobe record grand public events such as her wedding to Prince Albert in 1841 and the opening of the Great Exhibition in 1851. Fragments of her ball gowns and court trains from the late 1840s and 1850s also reveal a light and airy wardrobe for dancing in.

    In this talk, curator Deirdre Murphy will explore Queen Victoria’s early wardrobe. An examination of surviving dress fragments, alongside accounts, press reports and private correspondence, will illustrate how the Queen used dress to cultivate her public image and how some of the men in her life helped to shape her taste in clothes.

    This event includes a drinks reception.

    To book, click here. 

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    History of Victorian cakes
    Talk and tasting session
    With Food Historian Dr Annie Gray

    Date        Saturday 26 May
    Time        10.30am – 1pm
    Cost        £30 / £26 HRP members

    ‘I come as a petitioner for a supply of the cakes or Oblaten which you kindly send me, but which have come to a dead stop, having been too rapidly consumed; all the children having taken to eating them’.
    — Queen Victoria, 14 Aug 1856

    Battenberg cake, Victoria Sponge and Rich Tea biscuits all have a connection or association with the Royal Family and Queen Victoria. The Battenberg cake for example, has traditionally been associated with the marriage of Queen Victoria’s granddaughter, Princess Victoria of Hesse, to Prince Louis of Battenberg in 1884.

    In this talk and tasting session, Food Historian Annie Gray will take you on a culinary journey
    through the history of Victorian cakes and some of their regal connections. She will put the Royal Family on the tea table covering recipes as well as myths about biscuits and cakes named after royalty. She will also look more broadly at royal memorabilia and the cult of Queen Victoria. Recipe cards will be supplied and there will be a chance to taste samples of the cakes.

    This event includes light refreshments and entry to Kensington Palace.

    To book, click here. 

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    Her Majesty, Mrs Brown
    Talk and film screening
    With historian and writer Alex von Tunzelmann

    Date        Wednesday 20 June
    Time        6.15pm – 8.30pm
    Cost        £12 / £10 HRP members

    ‘Wheresoever the blame lies, we must now close ranks and defend Mrs Brown’s England’
    — Her Majesty, Mrs Brown, 1997

    It is the winter of 1861 and Queen Victoria has became a recluse, suffering from a deep depression caused by the death of her husband. Her self-imposed exile is unacceptable to the nation and in despair the Queen’s Private Secretary summons John Brown, the Royal Family’s Scottish hunting guide to coax her back to her former self. Brown turns the tight structure of Victoria’s household upside down with his insolence and lack of formality. His charm however wins the heart of Victoria and Brown soon becomes the Queen’s most trusted companion.

    Directed by John Madden and staring Dame Judi Dench and Billy Connolly, Her Majesty, Mrs Brown opened to critical acclaim when it was released in 1997.

    This screening will be opened and closed with a discussion by writer and historian Alex von Tunzelmann about representations of Victoria on the big screen, as iconic figure and black clad caricature.

    This event includes a drinks reception.

    To book, click here. 

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    • New  Current programme

    Spring Adult Learning Brochure (PDF 6MB) >


    Past programmes 2011

    Autumn Adult Learning Brochure (PDF 1.8MB) >

    Summer Adult Learning Brochure (PDF 2.5MB) >

    Booking Information

    For full details on booking events at all palaces, click here.

    Please note, if you want to book for more than one event in the same transaction, please call Historic Royal Palaces booking line on 0844 482 7799. There is a £2 transaction charge for all bookings made through the booking line. 



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