Research Institute

Historic Royal Palaces Research Institute

In March 2019 we launched the Historic Royal Palaces Research Institute to provide a community network for staff undertaking research across the organisation and provide a platform for our academic projects, programmes and partnerships. The research we do at Historic Royal Palaces underpins everything about who we are and what we do. 

Our vision

Our vision is to bring to life our palaces, their collections, landscapes and communities by exploring new perspectives and techniques and developing innovative engagement methodologies. 

We have developed a number of priority research areas to support our work as an Independent Research Organisation and our collaborative research partnerships:

• Memory: endeavouring to recover, reconstruct and interpret past events.
• Diversity: diverse and unspoken voices, communities and experiences.
• Technology: experimenting with new techniques to further our understanding and presentation of our heritage.
• Mobility and Migration: movement of people, objects and images.
• Identities: discovering new histories of people and places.
• Heritage Management and Practice: heritage experiences past and present, emotional engagement and digital technology.

The Jewish History of the Medieval Tower of London

World-famous as a royal fortress and prison, the Tower of London is also one of the most substantial standing remains of medieval England’s Jewish history.

From the mid-twelfth century to the expulsion of the Anglo-Jewry in 1290, the Tower was both a place of imprisonment and of refuge for hundreds of Jews.

This two-year project explores the Tower’s central place in this complex story of coercion and coexistence.

Henry VIII on Tour: Tudor Palaces and Royal Progresses

This one-year research network will assess the characteristics, iconography and material culture associated with Tudor royal progresses and in particular those of Henry VIII. 

Portable Palaces: Royal Tents and Timber Lodgings 1509-1603

Portable Palaces explores the tent as an important and ubiquitous expression of architecture through a study of the design of the royal tents and associated temporary buildings that were created for the sixteenth-century English court.

Victoria's Self-Fashioning: curating the royal image for dynasty, nation, and empire

This one-year research network will examine Queen Victoria's role in the fashioning of her own image, and the consequences of this for monarchy, nation, and empire from the nineteenth century to the present.

Lest We Forget: Poppies and Public Commemoration

'Lest we forget' explores the ways in which the public commemorated the First World War through a case study of ‘Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red’- an art installation of over 800,000 ceramic poppies, planted in the Tower of London moat in 2014.

MA Heritage Management

Study and research Heritage Management, guided by experts at Historic Royal Palaces and Queen Mary University of London.