Frogmore

Frogmore is an estate within the Home Park, adjoining Windsor Castle, in Berkshire, England. It comprises 33 acres (130,000 m²), of primarily private gardens managed by the Crown Estate. It is the location of Frogmore House, a royal retreat, and Frogmore Cottage. The name derives from the preponderance of frogs which have always lived in this low-lying and marshy area near the River Thames. This area is part of the local flood plain. Its large landscaped gardens are Grade I listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

Part of the gardens of the estate are set aside as burial places for members of the British royal family: the Royal Mausoleum (containing the tomb of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert); the Royal Burial Ground; and the Duchess of Kent's Mausoleum (the tomb of Queen Victoria's mother).

Frogmore House was built in the 1680s and in 1792 the house and estate were bought by George III for his wife Queen Charlotte, although the land had formed part of the Windsor royal hunting ground since the reign of Henry VIII. Charlotte engaged James Wyatt to redesign the house and sought the advice of her Vice-Chamberlain, William Price, regarding the redevelopment of the grounds. Price’s brother Uvedale, an early exponent of the Picturesque, clearly influenced the design. In 1840, Frogmore was inherited by the Duchess of Kent and, following her death in 1861, by her daughter, Queen Victoria. The estate became a favoured, almost sacred, retreat; after burying her mother in a mausoleum overlooking the lake, the Queen commissioned another, the Royal Mausoleum, for her husband Albert, Prince Consort and for herself, after Albert’s death in 1861.

During her long widowhood, when she rarely visited London, Victoria spent much of her time at Windsor and at Frogmore. She undertook further building work in the gardens, employing Samuel Sanders Teulon to construct a teahouse, and engaging Thomas Willement to redecorate the Gothic Ruin, originally designed by Wyatt and Princess Elizabeth. In this setting Victoria placed the Indian Kiosk, and in her later years would often undertake correspondence in a tent set up nearby, attended by her Indian servant Abdul Karim.

In 1900 Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma was born at Frogmore House. On the estate near the House is Frogmore Cottage, built for Queen Charlotte around 1801. Frogmore Gardens are Grade I listed.

The first of two mausoleums within the Frogmore Gardens is the burial place of Queen Victoria's mother, Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, the Duchess of Kent. The Mausoleum was designed by the architect A J Humbert, to a concept design by Prince Albert's favourite artist, Professor Ludwig Gruner.

In the latter years of her life, the Duchess lived in Frogmore House and in the 1850s, construction began on a beautiful domed 'temple' in the grounds of the estate. The top portion of the finished building was intended to serve as a summer-house for the Duchess during her lifetime, while the lower level was destined as her final resting place. The Duchess died at Frogmore House on 16 March 1861 before the summer-house was completed so the upper chamber became part of the mausoleum and now contains a statue of the Duchess by William Theed (1864).

The second mausoleum in the grounds of Frogmore, just a short distance from the Duchess of Kent's Mausoleum, is the much larger Royal Mausoleum, the burial place of Queen Victoria and her consort, Prince Albert. Queen Victoria and her husband had long intended to construct a special resting place for them both, instead of the two of them being buried in one of the traditional resting places of British Royalty, such as Westminster Abbey or St. George's Chapel, Windsor. The mausoleum for the Queen's mother was being constructed at Frogmore in 1861 when Prince Albert died in December of the same year. Within a few days of his death, proposals for the mausoleum were being drawn up by the same designers involved in the Duchess of Kent's Mausoleum: Professor Gruner and A. J. Humbert.