Dolls' houses have an endless appeal, their vision of elaborate interiors in miniature utterly charming. One of the world's most impressive is the spectacular Queen Mary’s dolls’ house, built between 1921 and 1924 by Sir Edwin Lutyens – then described as the greatest architect since Christopher Wren – with contributions from over 1500 of the finest artists, craftsmen and manufacturers of the early 20th century.
The dolls' house is located in Windsor Castle and visitable by the public, as Melania did today. The eight storey house was designed to be the kind of house that a member of the royal family might live in, with elegant upstairs rooms, a functioning ‘downstairs’ set of offices, including a garage. There’s a library stocked with books by the top literary names of the day, a wine cellar filled with bottles of real wine, and a garden created by the famed garden designer Gertrude Jekyll. There is also electricity, hot and cold running water, and working lifts. There’s also – this being a royal residence – a complete set of miniature crown jewels in the Strong Room, which are set with real diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds and seed pearls, and a pair of thrones in the Saloon.
Dreamed up by Princess Marie Louise, a cousin of to Queen Mary's husband King George V, the house was designed as a gift for the Queen, and features the contributions of a vast range of craftspeople and artists, along with 500 donors who contributed to the cost of the house. Once completed, it was displayed to the public at the 1924 Empire Exhibition at Wembley, which was a showcase for the best of British craftsmanship, and visited by more than 15 million people. Later, in 1925, it was moved to Windsor Castle, where it now resides in a special room designed by the house's own architect, Sir Edwin Lutyens.
Other highlights of the house's design include the fully equipped servants' quarters (perfect for fans of Downton Abbey), which come with a vacuum cleaner (then a relatively new invention and at the cutting edge of domestic science, and a sewing machine with miniature (and fully functioning) scissors. For the centenary of the house last year, the house also had tiny Christmas decorations added to it (and we very much hope these will be making a comeback.
To visit Queen Mary's Dolls' House you will need to buy a ticket to Windsor Castle generally. Windsor Castle is open to tourists throughout the year, apart from Tuesdays and Wednesdays, when the castle is shut to visitors. The castle tour includes the State Apartments that are used today by the royal family, the historical rooms that were built for Charles II and private apartments created for George IV.
