Inside the Royal waiting room: How Buckingham Palace’s Centre Room has played host to nervous Kings, Queens and other royals – and even a triumphant Winston Churchill – before they stepped out onto the most famous balcony in the world

It is known as the Royal waiting room – where for more than 150 years kings, queens and royals have mingled – often nervously – before walking on to the world’s most famous balcony.

Buckingham Palace’s Centre Room, which will be open to visitors for the first time this summer as part of an opening of up of the royal home’s East Wing, has been a host for nerves and excitement since the reign of Queen Victoria.

It is now home to a newly restored glass chandelier that is shaped to resemble a lotus flower and two Chinese 18th-century silk wall hangings that were presented to Victoria by the emperor of China to mark her Diamond Jubilee in 1897.

But, beyond the beauty of the ornate furnishings, it is the conversations that the royals have had inside it ahead of their balcony appearances that are most fascinating.

Meghan Markle, on her first balcony outing in 2018, reportedly admitted to her husband Prince Harry that she was ‘nervous’, so it was in the Centre Room where she would have sought to calm those jitters.

The room has also been host to at least one wisp of cigarette smoke. Prince Henry, the late Duke of Gloucester, was pictured enjoying a crafty puff on the balcony threshold in May 1952, when Queen Elizabeth II oversaw the first Trooping the Colour ceremony of her reign. 

At her Coronation the following year, four-year-old Prince Charles and his then two-year-old sister Princess Anne would likely have been jumping up and down with excitement in the Centre Room before they faced the public with their family.    

During her 70 years on the throne, there were dozens more balcony outings that would have been preceded by the gathering of the royals in the Centre Room.

At her Silver Jubilee in 1977, Lord Mountbatten recalled in his diaries how he hung back before the Queen called him out. 

He wrote: ‘I then stayed back discreetly to let the Family go on but was sent for by Lilibet no less than three times saying she wanted me to come up and go out on the balcony.

‘When I arrived she asked me what had been delaying me and said that she wanted me to be there when the family went out together so I was pulled out and stood behind her and I was glad that this happened because I would never have believed the sight of the crowds if I hadn’t been out on the balcony and seen for myself.’

He added that the sight of The Mall, which was ‘full from end to end’, was ‘staggering’. 

It was in the Centre Room that the monarch prepared to make her final wave to the public from the famous Palace platform at her Platinum Jubilee in 2022.

The following year, King Charles gathered his new ‘slimmed down’ monarchy in the same spot before the traditional balcony appearance at his stunning Coronation. 

On the day of the majestic wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana in 1981, the new royal couple kissed on the balcony.

And, five years later, when Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson tied the knot, they echoed Charles and Diana’s kiss with a smooch of their own. 

Prince William and Catherine, now the Princess of Wales, also shared a kiss on the balcony when they married in 2011.

But the royal waiting room has also played host to some of Britain’s most well-known politicians.

On VE Day in 1945, Winston Churchill joined the Royal Family – including Princess Elizabeth in uniform – on the palace’s balcony.

A fly on the wall in the Centre Room would have seen him engage in small talk before he stepped outside to the roar of a jubilant, war weary crowd. 

Seven years earlier, when the ill-fated Munich Agreement was struck with Hitler, George VI chose to bring out prime minister Neville Chamberlain – the architect of the deal – onto the balcony. 

Royal historian Hugo Vickers told MailOnline: ‘At times of national celebration, the focus of London turns to the balcony of Buckingham Palace. 

‘Queen Victoria was the first to appear on it in 1851 during the celebrations for the opening of the Great Exhibition. 

‘One of her granddaughters, Princess Alice of Albany appeared on it, aged 4, at the time of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee, and remarkably she was out there again after Trooping the Colour in June 1977 at the time of Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee – then called Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone.

‘George VI brought Neville Chamberlain out rather controversially after his ‘Peace in our Time’ visit to Germany in 1938. 

‘More popular was the appearance of Winston Churchill with the Royal Family on VE Day in 1945, Princess Elizabeth in uniform. 

‘The Queen Mother appeared fifty years later with the Queen and Princess Margaret to celebrate the anniversary.

‘It has become a feature of modern day royal weddings that the bride and groom appear on the balcony. 

‘In 1981 there was the first famous royal kiss between Charles and Diana. Now this is expected. 

‘In 1986 Andrew and Sarah Ferguson pretended not to hear the demands of the crowd, but then went for it. William and Catherine were more restrained in 2011.’

He added: ‘The last time the Queen was ever publicly seen in London was at the end of her Platinum Jubilee celebrations in 2022.

‘She had missed many of the celebrations but decided at the last minute to come up from Windsor by road. 

‘She appeared in a bright green coat, waving to the adoring crowd for the last time.’

Queen Victoria was the first to use the Centre Room, which was was built between 1847 and 1849 as part of an extension to house her growing family.