9
City & Village Tours: 0208 692 1133
House into a palace fit for King George IV. The
Picture Gallery has always served as one of the
principal rooms for official entertaining. Recipients
of honours are welcomed in this room before being
led into the Ballroom for their Investiture. Pictures
hung here change regularly as The Queen lends many
paintings to exhibitions and museums around the UK
and abroad but you can always expect the old masters.
Shiny With Medals
That evening a banquet was held in honour of
President and Mrs Tan with 170 guests. Fillet of sole,
stuffed breast of pheasant, salad, iced chocolate bombe
- a dessert of ice cream frozen into the shape of a
cannonball - and fruits were on the menu, which was
written in French as is the custom. State Banquets
are shiny with medals. The Queen wore her Order
of Temasek red-and-white sash and white star -
Singapore's second highest national honour which
she received when she visited the Republic in 1972.
President Tan wore his Grand Cross of the Order of
the Bath - the third highest British honour and a medal
that was awarded to the president during the state visit.
Dancing on The Tables
The preparations for a State Banquet are quite
incredible. The huge dining table is 160 feet long
and it takes six men three hours to assemble it in a
horseshoe shape as the ball room is only 120 feet
long. It is so wide that to shine it the footmen have to
shuffle over it with dusters covering their stockinged
feet and each armed with a sort of padded croquet
mallet. Oh my wouldn’t you pay to see that!
The table is covered with seven linen tablecloths
of finely woven damask stitched together to stop
them from ruckling. Table laying begins two days
before the banquet when the napkins are folded into
a Dutch bonnet shape by the Yeoman of the China
and Glass Pantries. He is just one of three hundred
Buckingham Palace staff working alongside other
specialists like the two men employed solely to
maintain and wind the palace clocks and the
stewards who are responsible for the solid gold
cutlery and crystal glasses used for State Banquets.
The Precision of Linen
The napkin man’s precise work is crucial in
working out the 18 inches allowed for each place
setting – much needed when you consider that
each guest will have six glasses! One red, one
white, one water, one port and two champagne –
one each for the toast and pudding. The word
banquet originally meant dessert – traditionally
the most expensive course of the meal made with
imported sugar and exotic spices giving the
household a chance to show off. Now every
aspect of a banquet is designed to impress the
guests. At Buckingham Palace the table is laid
with more than 100 ivory candles, each a foot long
and held in the Mercury, Bacchus and the Apples
of Hesperides 12-candle candelabra which, along
with bowls of fruit stand on mirror plateaux.
The Royal Florist and his team will spend 36 hours
preparing 23 flower arrangements on the table
and nine larger arrangements around the Ballroom.
Continued overleaf….
