Watching with the world at Lindo Wing, plus the births of the elder royal children.
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They have become some of the most stared-at doors in the world: the entrance to the Lindo Wing at St. Mary’s Hospital in London.
Through those doors the newest royal baby, the third child of Prince William and Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, a son, was presented.
He follows in a growing tradition: His older brother, George, in 2013, and his sister, Charlotte, in 2015, were also born at the Lindo Wing, emerging from the hospital to be greeted by a phalanx of reporters from around the world.
William himself, cradled by his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, and his father, Prince Charles, made the same journey in 1982, as did his brother, Harry, two years later.
But Diana, for once, hadn’t set the trend: Princess Anne, the daughter of Queen Elizabeth II, was the first to use the Lindo Wing to give birth; her son, Peter, was born there in 1977. Her daughter, Zara, followed, in 1981.
Excitement about the latest royal birth began when Kensington Palace posted on Twitter at 8.22 a.m. Monday that Catherine had been admitted to the hospital that morning. At 1 p.m. the palace tweeted again: “Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge was safely delivered of a son at 1101hrs.”
Around 2.30 p.m., in accordance with tradition, an official notice was erected on an easel in front of Buckingham Palace.
Outside the Lindo Wing, though, journalists were still waiting for the first view of the new royal.
Breaths are held every time the doors open — there are often false alarms as nonroyal parents emerge. (The Lindo Wing is a private maternity ward, attached to a public hospital. It offers
MEET GEORGE, BORN JULY 23, 2013: luxurious surroundings for paying patients.)
While the journalists waited, the bets were on, first about whether the new arrival would be a boy or a girl, and then about the baby’s name. An airplane towing an advertisement for a bookmaker was flying over the hospital on Monday, Reuters reported.
Among the reporters, diehard royal fans — some of whom have been waiting for weeks outside the hospital
MEET CHARLOTTE, BORN MAY 2, 2015: — add a splash of color and quirky devotion, often wearing costumes festooned with the British flag.
This year, two fans came with puppets in paper crowns, one dressed as a boy and the other as a girl.
“I’ve been doing it a long, long time,” Terry Hutt, 83, holding the boy doll, told Reuters. “Every time I come, have you had butterflies? I get butterflies.”
Anna Schaverien contributed reporting.