Buckingham Palace Trivia
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59 free Buckingham Palace trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This Buckingham Palace trivia quiz covers the London home of the British monarchy from a duke's townhouse to the palace behind the famous balcony. The easy questions are the ones any visitor should manage: which monarch first lived there, what ceremony happens in the forecourt, how many rooms it has, and which king now chooses to live next door instead. Then it gets more demanding: the mulberry garden James I planted for silk, the price George III paid in 1761, the queen who bore 14 children there, the architect sacked for overspending, the sale that paid for the East Front, the note pinned to the railings in 1864, the jazz band that played for George V, the RAF pilot who rammed a bomber to save the palace, the Queen Mother's East End remark, the room where state banquets are held, the Delhi Durbar canopy, the Belgian Suite, the Gold State Coach and the man who got into the Queen's bedroom in 1982. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entry on Buckingham Palace before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Big Ben, London and British royal family quizzes next.
30 of 59 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Buckingham Palace lies in which London borough?
Westminster
Westminster Abbey once owned the land: a Norman baron gave the manor to its monks, and it stayed theirs for centuries until Henry VIII acquired it in 1536.
Q 02Buckingham Palace takes its name from what?
A duke who built a house there
A duke who built a house there: John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, put up Buckingham House in the early 1700s, and his townhouse still forms the core of the palace.
Q 03George III bought Buckingham House in the early 1760s as a private home for whom?
Queen Charlotte
Queen Charlotte was the King's new bride, and the house gave the couple a private family home, away from the palace where the ceremony of court carried on.
Q 04Who sold Buckingham House some 40 years after its builder died?
His son
His son, Charles Sheffield, was illegitimate: he came into the house because the builder's legitimate heir died young.
Q 05Under George III, Buckingham House became known by what name?
The Queen's House
The Queen's House became hers by law in 1775, when an Act of Parliament settled it on the queen in exchange for her rights to Somerset House.
Q 06Ambassadors to Britain are accredited to the court of which palace?
St James's
St James's Palace. Henry VIII's red-brick palace was the monarch's main London home before Buckingham Palace, and the royal court kept its name after the move, so ambassadors still serve at the 'Court of St James's'.
Q 07Which Regent Street architect turned Buckingham House into a palace for George IV, only to be dismissed as costs spiralled?
John Nash
John Nash. The overspend ended his career: he faced an official inquiry into the palace's cost and retired to his castle on the Isle of Wight.
Q 08Which London landmark was built as Buckingham Palace's grand front gateway, then moved to a corner of Hyde Park?
Marble Arch
Marble Arch. It was designed as a triumphal arch celebrating Trafalgar and Waterloo, and it had to go when the new east wing was built across the open courtyard it guarded.
Q 09Who was the first monarch to live at Buckingham Palace?
Queen Victoria
Queen Victoria, who moved in just weeks into her reign in 1837. George IV died before his palace was finished, and his brother William IV never moved in.
Q 10William IV offered to convert Buckingham Palace into what after a fire in 1834?
A new Houses of Parliament
A new Houses of Parliament. Fire had just destroyed the old one and the King had no wish to live in his unfinished palace, but the offer was declined and MPs rebuilt on their riverside site.
Q 11The sale of which royal residence helped pay for Buckingham Palace's new east wing in the 1840s?
Brighton Pavilion
Brighton Pavilion. George IV's seaside pleasure palace went to the town for £53,000, and the money helped build the wing that now carries the famous balcony.
Q 12Which flag flies over Buckingham Palace only when the monarch is in residence?
The Royal Standard
The Royal Standard. Until 1997 the pole stood bare whenever the monarch was away, but after public anger at the empty flagpole following Diana's death the Union Flag has flown in its place.
Q 13Which composer, Queen Victoria's favourite, played for her at Buckingham Palace several times in the 1840s?
Felix Mendelssohn
Q 21In 1940 the Queen said she was glad Buckingham Palace had been bombed, as she could now face which part of London?
The East End
The East End. Queen Elizabeth, later the Queen Mother, and the King stayed in London through the Blitz and toured the district's bombed streets, and sharing the danger won them lasting affection.
Q 22In 1940, how did pilot Ray Holmes stop a bomber seemingly bound for Buckingham Palace?
Ramming it with his own aircraft
Ramming it with his own aircraft. Out of ammunition, he struck the Dornier's tail with his Hurricane, then parachuted to safety as the bomber spiralled down onto a London railway station.
Q 23What was built on the site of the bombed chapel and opened to the public in 1962?
Felix Mendelssohn. On one visit the Queen offered to sing her favourite of his songs, and he had to confess that it was really written by his sister Fanny.
Q 14With the widowed Queen long absent, what did a note on the palace railings offer?
The premises to be let or sold
The premises to be let or sold, 'in consequence of the late occupant's declining business'. The Queen had rarely set foot in London since Prince Albert's death in 1861, and the palace stood seldom used.
Q 15Which king redecorated Buckingham Palace's state rooms in a cream and gold Belle Époque style in the early 1900s?
Edward VII
Edward VII. He turned a neglected palace back into the centre of London society, though his 1902 coronation was delayed when he needed an emergency operation there.
Q 16Buckingham Palace's famous front was refaced for George V in which pale, hard-wearing English stone?
Portland stone
Portland stone. Aston Webb designed the new front as a backdrop to the Victoria Memorial that had just gone up outside the gates, and the tougher white rock replaced a softer stone.
Q 17Which new American genre did a visiting band play for George V at a Buckingham Palace command performance in 1919?
Jazz
Jazz, played by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. The assembled guests stared at them 'as though there were bugs on us', their leader recalled, until the King laughed and applauded.
Q 18In 1937 a special company of which youth organisation was set up inside Buckingham Palace for Princess Elizabeth?
The Girl Guides
The Girl Guides. The 1st Buckingham Palace Company was formed so the future queen could mix with girls her own age, and it recruited the daughters of courtiers and palace staff.
Q 19In the late 1930s George VI had a palace conservatory converted into what for his two young daughters?
A swimming pool
A swimming pool. Elizabeth and Margaret had become keen swimmers, but within a couple of years a wartime bomb landed beside the new pool and it had to be rebuilt.
Q 20Who joined the King and Queen on the Buckingham Palace balcony on VE Day?
Churchill
Churchill. That evening the two princesses went out to join the celebrations unrecognised, and Elizabeth later recalled being swept along the streets on a tide of happiness and relief.
The King's Gallery
The King's Gallery. The bomb-damaged ruin became a home for changing shows from the Royal Collection, and for its first six decades it was called the Queen's Gallery.
Q 24Opening the palace to paying visitors in 1993 funded repairs to which fire-damaged residence?
Windsor Castle
Windsor Castle. A public row over who should pay for the 1992 fire ended with the Queen meeting 70% of the bill, so she opened her London home to summer visitors at £8 a head.
Q 25How many rooms does Buckingham Palace have?
775
775. Only 19 of them are State Rooms; the rest include 188 staff bedrooms, 92 offices and 78 bathrooms, because the palace is a working headquarters as well as a home.
Q 26Who comes to Buckingham Palace for a private weekly audience with the monarch?
The Prime Minister
The Prime Minister. No minutes or recordings are ever made, so nobody else knows what is said, and a politically neutral monarch can still 'advise and warn' the head of the government.
Q 27Which is the largest room in Buckingham Palace, where state banquets are held?
The Ballroom
The Ballroom. Around 170 guests dine there at a state banquet, and staff go round the table with a measuring stick so that every place setting gets the same 18 inches.
Q 28At a Buckingham Palace state banquet, guests sit at one table of which shape?
A horseshoe
A horseshoe, with the monarch and the guest of honour at its head. Staff spend days laying it, and before the guests arrive the monarch comes in person to look the table over.
Q 29Which Buckingham Palace room was the backdrop for William and Catherine's official wedding photographs in 2011?
The Throne Room
The Throne Room. The photographer's team moved in three days early and rehearsed against a stopwatch with palace staff standing in for the family, then kept the young bridesmaids and pageboys still with bowls of jelly beans.
Q 30Fewer than 40 paintings survive by which Dutch master, one of them hanging in Buckingham Palace?
Vermeer
Vermeer. George III bought the picture in 1762 as the work of a different Dutch painter, so one of only 34 or so known Vermeers joined the Royal Collection by accident.