‘I feel part of it’: Duchess enjoys day out at Queen Victoria’s retreat
WHEN Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, visited Osborne House, the holiday home of Queen Victoria, yesterday, she did what most day trippers do – a bit of sightseeing and an ice cream on the beach. But few visitors to Victoria’s Isle of Wight retreat can lay personal claim to it in the way the Duchess can.
The house was, after all, completed in 1851 by her great-great-grandfather Thomas Cubitt, the London architect and builder. So it was understandable that, at the end of the visit, the Duchess jokingly confessed to an aide that she wished the Royal family had not returned Osborne House to the state for the public to enjoy. “It’s a shame Edward VII gave it back. It would have been nice to have it,” she said.
The Duchess later told guests at a reception at the Royal Yacht Squadron, including Alan Titchmarsh, the television gardener: “Going to Osborne House is always such a treat as it was built by my great-great-grandfather and I feel very fond of the place.”
The Duchess was shown around Osborne House, now run by English Heritage, by Dame Judi Dench, who has twice portrayed Queen Victoria on film, in Mrs Brown and more recently Victoria and Abdul.
Dame Judi showed her the newly restored Durban Room, where scenes for
Victoria and Abdul, Stephen Frears’s film about the Queen’s close friendship with an Indian servant, were shot.
The room was commissioned by Victoria as a copy of a palatial Indian state room and the Duchess appeared lost in admiration of its ornate ceilings, inspired by the Hindu and Islamic architecture of north India.
“It think it’s brilliant. I feel part of it,” she said. “I very much feel part of it.”