The Royal Pavilion

By Paul H. Vickers, Friends of the Aldershot Military Museum

On the west side of Farnborough Road, just south of the junction with Wellington Avenue and Wellesley Road, are some large cast-iron gates which mark the original main entrance to the grounds of the Royal Pavilion. This royal residence was built in 1856 as accommodation for Queen Victoria, Prince Albert or other members of the royal family when they were visiting the Army in Aldershot. The Queen was a frequent visitor, especially during the early years before the death of the Prince Consort. Except for a period of mourning following the death of the Prince, she continued to visit at least once a year throughout her reign.

Prince Albert took a personal interest in the establishment and building of the camp at Aldershot, and during a visit on 2 April 1855 to inspect the progress of the early works he also chose the site for the Queen’s pavilion. This was on a low hill to the south-west of the huts which were being built for the troops, from where there were clear views across the new camp. George Myers was given the contract to build the pavilion after a recommendation from General Sir Frederic Smith RE, who was in charge of the construction of the camp.

Queen Victoria expressed a desire that the pavilion should resemble the soldiers’ huts as far as possible, so it was a single-storey building, constructed in wood and of a relatively simple design, although considerably larger than the military huts. Inside were a drawing room, dining room, and four principal bedrooms, plus rooms for various attendants. A contemporary account described the interior as being “plain but handsome, inferior in all ways to the furnishing of her Majesty’s palaces generally, but suitable for the temporary habitation of a few days”. The main rooms were said to be “very tastefully decorated, with simple hangings to match, the floors being laid with fine India matting”. Contemporary opinions on the pavilion varied. The Illustrated London News thought it was “bald, cold and ugly to an extreme”, although the Duke of Cambridge thought it “very nice and nicely furnished and fitted up”. The Queen evidently liked it, referring in her journal to “the dear cozy Pavilion at Aldershot”.

A little lower down the hill was a separate small cluster of buildings including the kitchen and servants’ quarters. The kitchen was equipped with “a magnificent array of casseroles, steamers, and gourmet appliances”, next to it was a scullery, pastry-room, and an area for “cleansing of salads and other legumes”. To deliver the food from the kitchen to the pavilion dining room “quickly, and without observation” there was a glass-roofed tunnel, at the end of which was a wooden staircase and a lift to take the meals up to the servery. In the servants’ quarters was “the house-maids’ sleeping room; and divided from it by the servants’ hall … the dormitory for the men-servants, seventeen in number.” The rooms were “small, with a little camp bedstead on one side, and on a bracket the usual washing apparatus, with a square glass above it”. Just inside the gates was the guardroom, another small, single-storey wooden building, which accommodated eight non-commissioned officers and men. Two sentries were on duty night and day, one at the gates and another on the main terrace around the pavilion. Opposite the guardroom were stables for 40 to 50 horses.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert first stayed overnight in the Royal Pavilion on 18 June 1856, when they visited to mark the completion of the camp. Her Majesty returned on 7 July to inspect the Brigade of Guards and other troops newly returned from the Crimea. The next day Lord Hardinge, the Commander-in-Chief, attended Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort at the Royal Pavilion to present the findings of an enquiry into the Army during the Crimean War, but while there he suffered a stroke and was taken back to his residence. Hardinge never fully recovered, and died on 24 September 1856.

The Royal Pavilion remained in regular use throughout the nineteenth century. After Government House was built in 1883 as a residence for the General Officer Commanding, Queen Victoria would often take tea there before travelling to the Royal Pavilion. It is reported that a soldier was stationed on the balcony of Government House with a heliograph, who signalled to the Royal Pavilion when the Queen left so the staff could be ready to receive her, knowing that it took exactly 11 minutes for her carriage to reach the pavilion. After the death of Queen Victoria the Royal Pavilion was used by King Edward VII from 1902, and King George V and Queen Mary used it when they visited Aldershot, usually being here for around five days over Whitsuntide.

Other notable residents included the Duke and Duchess of Connaught, who stayed at the Royal Pavilion in 1879 just after their marriage, while awaiting the completion of their mansion at Bagshot Park. In 1903 General Sir John French, then General Officer Commanding in Aldershot, was given permission to stay in the pavilion with his family after a major fire at Government House. When French returned to his residence in 1904, the pavilion was taken over by Prince and Princess Alexander of Teck. Prince Alexander served in the 7th Hussars and was attached to French’s staff as an aide-de-camp.

The last members of the Royal family to use it as a residence were the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, when the Duke was at the Staff College in Camberley from 1935 to 1939. In August 1939 King George VI decided he had no further use for the pavilion and offered it to the Army. From 1940 to 1944 it was used by various units of the Canadian Army Overseas which were stationed in Aldershot during the Second World War. When the Canadians departed for D-Day in June 1944, the building was occupied by the Headquarters of the 11th Armoured Division, followed by the HQ of the Polish Armoured Division, then from November 1944 to June 1946 it was the ‘B’ officers’ mess of Aldershot District Headquarters. Thereafter it was used as the officers’ mess of the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment (1948); 3rd Battalion Coldstream Guards (1948 - 1949); and 13 Command Workshops REME (1949 - 1953).

The condition of the pavilion was deteriorating, and an engineer’s report in 1959 concluded that the Army “should not consider the Pavilion itself as a long term asset”. In 1962 Queen Elizabeth II agreed to the demolition of the Royal Pavilion, but asked that certain fittings and fixtures of historic value should be given to the Royal Pavilion Museum at Brighton and to Aldershot Borough Council for its museum.

On the site of the Royal Pavilion was built a new depot and training centre for the Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps (QARANC). The foundation stone for the new centre was laid by HRH Princess Margaret on 16 May 1963, and it opened in 1967. Following Army re-organisation and rationalisation in the 1990s, the QARANC left the Royal Pavilion and the 1960s buildings were demolished in 1998. The land was given up to commercial use and the Computer Sciences Corporation built its headquarters offices on the site.

All that remains of the original Royal Pavilion are the wooden guardroom and the iron gates and fencing on Farnborough Road. The guardroom was refurbished by the Computer Sciences Corporation when they built their new offices, to be used for seminars, training courses and meetings. Not only is the guardroom all that is left of the Royal Pavilion, it is the only wooden building which survives from the original camp, and so this seemingly plain and simple building is of great historical significance.

Credits

Article originally published in the The Garrison, Winter 2024

Copyright © Paul H. Vickers. This article, including the accompanying pictures, may not be reproduced or republished, in whole or in part, either in print or electronically, including on any websites or social media sites, without the prior permission of the author.