Museums

Household Cavalry Museum

A working stable seen through a glass wall at Horse Guards, and the story of the King's mounted bodyguard, with the guard changing outside.

Also in Royal London.

Horse Guards was built in the 1750s to William Kent's design as the barracks and stables of the sovereign's mounted guard, on the tiltyard of Whitehall Palace, and it was the army's headquarters until 1858; the Duke of Wellington's office is upstairs. The two regiments of the Household Cavalry, the Life Guards in red and the Blues and Royals in blue, have kept the guard here since Charles II came back in 1660, and their museum, opened in 2007 in the original stable block, is separated from the working stables by a wall of glass, so that the horses being groomed and tacked up are part of the display. Around them are the cuirasses and helmets, the saddles, the trumpets and the stories of the regiments from Waterloo to Afghanistan, where they fight in armoured vehicles when they are not on parade. The guard changes in the yard at eleven on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and the four o'clock inspection every afternoon is said to be the punishment Queen Victoria imposed in 1894 after she found the whole guard drunk.

Where

Whitehall, Covent Garden, SW1A 2AX

Nearest station

Charing Cross · 4 min walk

Step-free access

Hours

NearbyMuseums

• Banqueting House, Whitehall1 min walk
• Mall Galleries3 min walk
• Institute of Contemporary Arts4 min walk

NearbyOther Categories

• Horse GuardsRoyal London1 min walk
• The Spy BarCocktails1 min walk
• Trooping the ColourWhat’s On2 min walk

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