Osborne House

views updated May 17 2018

Osborne House (Isle of Wight). Soon after their marriage, Victoria and Albert looked around for a private residence, where their growing family could enjoy seaside holidays. In 1845 they purchased the Osborne estate near Cowes. Albert, with the assistance of Thomas Cubitt, builder of Belgravia, designed a large house in the Italian style. Victoria was devoted to it: ‘we can walk about anywhere by ourselves without being followed and mobbed,’ she wrote. She died there in 1901. Her son Edward VII was less enchanted, perhaps because he had been sent there as a youth to study. In defiance of his mother's wishes, he turned it into a naval college and convalescent home. It is now open to the public and contains many Victorian memorabilia.

J. A. Cannon

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