Hannah Betts on the Kings Staircase in Kensington Palace, London, whilst on a ghost hunting tour. Photo: Clara Molden
Halloween, that time of the year when we remember the dead, and I am sitting in Queen Victoria’s private apartments at Kensington Palace,
considering the means by which she endeavoured to remain in contact with her beloved Albert after his death in 1861.Here is the crystal locket in which she kept a lock of his infant hair, there, one of the 40 or so marble busts she placed constantly about her.
Not displayed are the plaster casts of his ear and hand that she kept with her in bed, so that his was still the ear she could whisper into last thing at night, the hand she could reach for first thing in the morning. (She was buried with the hand 40 years later.)
Kensington Palace
’s short series of eerie nocturnal tours presents the perfect opportunity for such reflections: a site redolent of 300 years of love and loss, proving that wealth and privilege are no protectors from pain.Ghost hunters will be in their element, no less royal lovers. Click link for full post from The Telegraph.