Buckingham Palace Trooping the Colour
This Saturday 16 June the Trooping the Colour
ceremony to officially celebrate the Queen’s birthday takes place
on London’s Horse Guards Parade. Its one of the biggest annual display’s
of military pageantry with massed ranks of infantry, cavalry and military
bands, all in their ceremonial uniforms.
Horse Guards Parade is the large parade ground at the eastern end of
St James’s Park, just off The Mall through Admiralty Arch. Temporary
seating is erected for Trooping the Colour but is limited and allocated
early in the year. If you can’t get close enough to Horse Guards,
a royal procession carrying the Queen will leave Buckingham Palace escorted
by Household Cavalry at 10.40am and there should be plenty of space along
The Mall to get a view.
At
Horse Guards the Queen will review the troops and take the salute. She
used to do this on horseback but now does it from a reviewing stand and
horse drawn carriage. After the colour’s have been trooped the
Queen heads back to Buckingham Palace, a gun slaute is fired in Green
Park at 12.52pm and an RAF flypast goes overhead at 1pm which the Royal
Family will watch from a Buckingham Palace balcony.
If you’re visiting London and want to to get some good pictures of British ceremonial, Trooping the Colour is a good event to get along to.