WHERE QUEEN ANNE SAT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 878, 23 January 1930, Page 9

WHERE QUEEN ANNE SAT

HISTORIC ROOM USED FOR NAVAL- CONFERENCE GHOSTS OF FORMER KINGS LONDON, December 19. It is in Queen Anne’s drawing-room at St. James’s Palace that statesmen of the Great Powers will meet for the Five Powers’ Naval Conference. The wing allotted for the purpose of the conference is rich in remembrance es of English royalty from the times of Henry VIII. The site of St. James’s Palace was once a lazar house for leprous women, a site “discreetly chosen, but as dreary and lonely as could be desired for the isolation of its inmates.” Henry VIII. bought out the hospital, and had the palace built. Parts of it from time to time have suffered from fire, and have been renovated and altered in decoration. The delegates to tire conference will find a magnificent suite of rooms at their disposal. They will enter the guard-room where Charles I. is said to have passed the night before his execution. Then they will find the armoury with William Morris decorations. ELABORATE INTERIOR Tills room leads out to the balcony from which the death of a sovereign, and the accesion of his successor, are announced. Adjoining is the tapestry room, the tapestries illustrating the amours of Venus and Mars. These tapestries were manufactured by Mortlake for Charles I. The room has an original and interesting fireplace. On one side are the initials "H" and “A” worked into a lovers’ knot, and on the other the “H” alone. “H” is for Henry VIII; the “A” for Anne Boleyn. Oh the silk-covered walls of Queen Anne’s drawing-room are handsome paintings and elaborate designs in gilt are carried out on the ceiling, from the centre of which hangs a magnificent chandelier.