The Gold State Coach will appear as part of the Platinum Jubilee Pageant on Sunday 5th June, 2022. It has been a splendid and beloved sight at royal coronations, jubilees and events since it was built in 1762.
To mark the beginning of the Platinum Jubilee Pageant, the bells of Westminster Abbey will peel as they did on Coronation Day. As they do so, the Mounted Band of the Household Cavalry will lead The Gold State Coach, drawn, as it has been for the past century, by eight Windsor Grey horses. The Gold State Coach transported The Queen to her Coronation 69 years ago, and has not been seen on the streets of London for over twenty years.
The Gold State Coach will play a very particular role in the Pageant, not transporting Her Majesty, but showing in the remodelled coach windows, archive film footage of the young Queen recorded on Coronation Day, evoking the image of the young Queen in the coach.
Adrian Evans, Pageant Master says: “Everywhere you look, in the golden sculptures and painted panels, in the detail of the harnesses worn by the magnificent Windsor Grey horses, in the uniforms of the postilions, grooms, footmen, attendants and mounted guards, there is a wealth of rich tradition and history. For the Pageant, this ceremonial escort is joined by The Queen’s Bargemaster and three Royal Watermen in their distinctive scarlet coats. It will be a unique spectacle, one that we are privileged to have opening the Pageant.”
In the past, the Coach only ever conveys the sovereign, although it has previously taken part in pageants with no passengers. When the sovereign is being conveyed in the Coach, it is escorted by a Sovereign’s Escort of the Household Cavalry. It is driven by postilions in full state livery. Grooms in full state livery walk close to the carriage. Slightly further away from the carriage body, and carrying long polearm called a partisan, walk the Yeomen of The Queen’s Body Guard of the Yeomen of the Guard (not what is today called a Beefeater, who are a different body within the same corps).
When not in use, the Gold State Coach is on public display whenever the Royal Mews is open, and will return to display shortly after the Pageant.
Use of the Coach at The Queen’s Coronation
The Queen used the Gold State Coach to travel from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey, and to return, on the day of the Coronation 2 June, 1953. She was accompanied by The Duke of Edinburgh, in the uniform of an Admiral of the Fleet. Royal Mews staff strapped a hot water bottle under the seat, as the day was unseasonally cold and wet.
The return route from Westminster Abbey was extended for this special occasion, allowing as many people as possible to see The Queen, now wearing the Imperial State Crown. She had left the Abbey carrying the orb and sceptre, and inside the Coach special supports had been created for them. The whole Coronation procession took 45 minutes to pass any one given point. At the Jubilees of 1977 and 2002, Her Majesty and The Duke of Edinburgh were conveyed in the Coach to a Service of National Thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral.
Design of the Coach
The Gold State Coach is the third oldest surviving coach in the UK. It is made of giltwood, which is a thin layer of gold leaf over wood. It is seven metres long, weighs four tonnes and is 3.6 metres tall. Because of the weight and suspension, it is only ever used at a walking pace. The Gold State Coach is always drawn by eight horses. In the past century these have been Windsor Greys, which are not a breed but a type selected by the Royal Mews.
The design was decided upon between Lord Huntingdon, the king’s Master of the Horse and Thomas Hollis, a wealthy art connoisseur, who contacted friends they had made in Europe during the Grand Tour; architect Sir William Chambers, sculptor Joseph Wilton, and the Florentine painter Giovanni Battista Cipriani.
