Royal Watch News

Royal family hiring out Kensington Palace gardens

Oct 19, 2012, 11:01 GMT

Queen Elizabeth

Britain's Queen Elizabeth will hire out the royal grounds again next summer.

The monarch is set to let Kensington Palace's gardens in order to host the country's biggest interior design festival, Decorex, which is expected to attract more than 11,000 visitors to Perks Field and the Orangery.

A Decorex spokeswoman is quoted by the London Evening Standard newspaper as saying: 'It's a beautiful location and a lot of the Decorex exhibitors are royal borough residents. It would be a great shame if the show went out of the royal borough.

'It's regarded as the best British decorating and design show in the country, and I think there is a desire to keep it in the borough.'

This will be the second summer in a row the royal family have hired out the gardens - where the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have a cottage - in order to boost its income from private sources.

This comes after Buckingham Palace successfully rented Perks Field to the Russian Olympic Committee for the London 2012 Games.

The plan is to raise money to cover running costs, with annual running fees in excess of £32 million a year and they receive £31 million from the British government for public appearances and travel costs.

It will take two months to set up Kensington Palace gardens for the Decorex festival's 35th year, which is expecting to draw in 300 exhibitors.

The event will run from September 22 to 25, 2013.