The Royal Ballet School (White Lodge)

"nice place shame about the abuse from the cyclists when i was trying to get to work"

"We watched swans on a lake and saw a baby bunny"

"What an impressive building in the middle of the Richmond park. Commissioned in 1725 as a hunting lodge for George I, White Lodge remains part of the Crown Estate to this day and partly housing the well known The Royal Ballet School. Here a little bit of a history: A misunderstood politician John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute (1713–1792) was appointed Ranger of the Park by George III in 1761 and took up residence at White Lodge. In 1801, George III assigned White Lodge to Henry Addington (a middle-class Prime Minister), later Viscount Sidmouth, as a ‘grace and favour’ residence. Addington, who served as Prime Minister from 1801 to 1804, remained at the Lodge until his death in 1844. The Empress Elizabeth of Austria-Hungary (Sissi) (1837–1898) stayed at White Lodge for the hunting season in the summer of 1874. In 1881 Sir Henry Irving and Ellen Terry were guests, the famous Victorian actors, who had recently starred at the Lyceum Theatre as Hamlet and Ophelia in Shakespeare’s tragic play of Hamlet. In January 1912, the famous ballerina, Anna Pavlova, and her partner, Laurent Novikoff, performed at Richmond Theatre with the members of the Company of the Imperial Ballet, St Petersburg. Many decades later, students of The Royal Ballet School would follow in Pavlova’s footsteps, dancing each summer at Richmond Theatre during the 1970s and 1980s. On 13 August 1924, there was another royal birth at White Lodge. Prince Aleksander Pavlov Karadorevic was born to Princess Olga of Greece and Denmark and Prince Paul of Yugoslavia, in the same room as that in which Prince Edward of Wales had been born, 30 years earlier. The marriage of Mrs Reynolds Albertini and Colonel James Veitch of the Coldstream Guards was reported in the Evening News on 12 April 1950. They continued to occupy White Lodge after the war, and hosted Marshal Tito there when he came to England on a state visit, March 1953. The Foreign Office agreed to Tito’s entourage being 29 strong, but let only 12 reside with him at White Lodge. For security reasons, Tito was not accommodated in a London. During the Autumn Term of the new academic year 1955/6, the first cohort of students boarding at White Lodge had to travel to their daily lessons at the School's Colet Gardens site in Barons Court, as the Stable Block classrooms were not yet ready."

"Infamous King Edward VIII (Queen's uncle) was born here in 1894. His mother Queen Mary and grandmother lived here as well as Queen Elizabeth's parents. Queen Victoria and Albert lived in White Lodge in their last year together in 1861 after death of Queen's mother. But the first owner of the house was King George II, his wife Caroline and first UK Prime minister Sir Robert Walpole. It was royal property until 1955."

"Beautiful white building in the heart of Richmond park. Surrounded by a green fence claims to be one of the world’s greatest centres of classical ballet training. Certainly worth taking a look !!!"