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"The great cranes swing monotonously to and fro, lifting the huge blocks of stone which are to give the Palace a completely new front, and the noise made by the hammers of the small army of workmen can be heard half way down the Mall."
Usually finding a London landmark covered in scaffolding would prompt a groan from visiting tourists. Not so with Buckingham Palace in 1913. People were here to see the scaffolding enshrouding the royal residence.
"Little can be seen of the Royal residence in these days," wrote the Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald, "Around it and hovering above it are gigantic cranes and a forest of scaffolding." Watercolourist Cecil King's painting of said industrial forest — the daylight dimming and electric lighting and flares kicking in so that workmen can continue into the night — shows a small group of Edwardians pausing to admire the undertaking. If anything, the painting underplays the excitement with which the remodelling was received.
"The scaffolding itself was a great spectacle," a Buckingham Palace spokesperson tells Londonist, "people would come out to see it, and in a summer when there wasn’t very much art news happening, the Illustrated London News sent their art reviewer down to review it — he praised it for its 'splendid economy'."
Why remodel Buckingham Palace in the first place? Buckingham House — built as a townhouse for the Duke of Buckingham and Normanby in 1703 — was acquired by George III in 1761 as a residence for Queen Charlotte, beginning its association with the Royal Family. In 1825, the house was demolished, and rebuilt by John Nash — then major adaptations were carried out between 1846-49, when the East Wing, with its now-famous balcony, was added.
By the 1910s however, soot and smog had rendered the front of Buckingham Palace a blackened mess, its Caen stone visibly crumbling. This wasn't the only issue. "There was also a sense in architectural circles that the façade of Buckingham Palace as it stood was very ugly," Buckingham Palace's spokesperson tells Londonist, "It was quite flat and boring, and seen as a bit of a national embarrassment." It begins to make sense then, that the Edwardians were more excited to see the palace under scaffolding than in its usual grimy state.
A facelift was in order for the bleak house, and Aston Webb — already well-regarded for his work on the Victoria & Albert Museum — was drafted in to come up with a more fulsome façade dripping with pillars, Corinthian capitals and a crowning pediment. Webb reasoned that the work could credibly be done in two years. After consultations with the Royal Family, it was decided everything could be done in just 13 weeks — commencing the moment the royals left for their summer holidays. As it happens, just a few months before, various painters and labourers working at the palace had in fact downed tools and gone on strike over a pay dispute. Presumably the 800 workmen tasked with this monumental overhaul had been offered a more than acceptable fee.
Not a second was lost. "Scarcely had the Queen's flag been hauled down when Her Majesty departed for Cowes when quite an army of workmen appeared in front of the palace," wrote the Kilburn Times on 15 August 1913.
Six derrick cranes, five electric hoists and two passenger lifts were set to work, along with those multitudes of workmen, who laboured on the facade day and night, six days a week, using over 6,000 tonnes of Portland stone. The work was perhaps carried out a little too hastily; at least two men died after falling from the scaffolding.
Completed on time (funny how contractors can meet a deadline when the client is royalty), a new palace frontage emerged in gleaming white Portland stone. Wrote the Western Mail: "Not only is the building improved by the architectural ornamentation, but, the material used being white, it will harmonise with the Victoria Memorial [this was erected in 1911] which stands in front of it."
The workers were invited to a congratulatory lunch, and given "strong tobacco and good food to eat". They deserved it alright; who knows how many million have since come to admire the grand frontage of what is one of the world's most recognisable buildings.
Cecil King's watercolour goes on display for the very first time, in the exhibition The Edwardians: Age of Elegance, at the King's Gallery, Buckingham Palace from 11 April-23 November 2025.
