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As part of Buckingham Palace’s multi-million renovation works to the buildings infrastructure, the Palace released footage showing the average route of a Royal footman delivering food to the Chinese Drawing Room, and how much time and effort could be saved when the works are completed in 2027.
As part of the £369million renovation programme, which includesupgrading cabling, plumbing and heating, new lifts are being installed to improve access and speed up routes through the building for the Queen’s royal footmen, who are said to walk past around 400 rooms when they are required to service parts of the building that are hardly touched.
The huge renovation task began in April 2017 and is due to finish in 2027.
A new video released by the Palace on Monday shows just how far staff and footman have to walk to reach some of the rooms in the building.
The video shows the long route taken by a butler as he takes food to some of the palace’s farthest rooms.
The Palace, is connected by a labyrinth of corridors through the building’s basement and hallways.
The Royal Family Twitter account said in a post: “Many of the lifts at the Palace are old and impractical – here’s how staff currently navigate from the kitchens to the Palace’s Chinese Drawing Room for functions.”
As well as aiding staff routes from the kitchens in the basement to the function rooms, the new lifts will make the building more accessible to wheelchair users.
The footage shows how architects working on the huge task used cutting edge laser technology to map the building’s vast network of corridors and rooms, which resulted in a 3D computer model to act as a guide during the redevelopment programme.
It is estimated that the ‘Point Cloud’ mapping technology covers around 775 rooms, 1,514 doors and 515 metres of corridor.
The renovation is being paid for via the Sovereign Grant, an annual fee paid by the Government to the monarch which in 2016 came to £42million.
The renovation, which is estimated to bring the Palace up to modern standards for the next 50 years, could generate around £3.4million per year in fees from tours and longer summer opening hours.
In a statement on the Royal Family’s website, officials said: “The Palace’s electrical cabling, plumbing and heating have not been updated since the 1950s. The building’s infrastructure is in urgent need of a complete overhaul to prevent long-term damage to the building and its contents.
“The most cost-effective way to replace these essential services, and to ensure that The Palace is fit for purpose for the next 50 years, is to undertake a phased programme of works over ten years.
“‘The programme will realise a series of long term financial and environmental benefits, as well as improvements to visitor access. The Palace will remain occupied and fully operational for the duration.”
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