The Royal Mews costs £18.00 for an adult and is now closed for the winter: its 2026 season ran from 5 March to 1 November, usually closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and the next one begins in spring. The King's Gallery costs £22.00 and opens daily, 10:00 to 17:30. Between them they cover almost the whole year in which the Buckingham Palace State Rooms are shut.
Both are corners of the same building. The State Rooms open for about eleven weeks in high summer, and in 2026 that ended on 27 September. For the other nine months, these two are what you can actually get into at Buckingham Palace, and neither is a consolation prize: one is a working stable with the Gold State Coach in it, the other is a serious exhibition gallery run by the Royal Collection Trust. Our guide to Buckingham Palace covers the State Rooms and the summer opening.
Two things to get straight first. The gallery changed its name after the accession of King Charles III and is now The King's Gallery, not the Queen's Gallery; older signs, books and third-party ticket sites still use the old name. And the two entrances are not on opposite sides of the palace, whatever a map with a big red dot may suggest. They are both on the south-west flank, four or five minutes' walk apart.
The two entrances, side by side
- The Royal Mews
- Buckingham Palace Road, SW1W 1QH. £18.00 adult. 2026 season 5 March - 1 November; closed in winter
- The King's Gallery
- Buckingham Gate corner, SW1A 1AA. £22.00 adult (2026 rate). Open daily
- Walk between them
- About 4 minutes along Buckingham Palace Road
- Nearest station
- Victoria, about 8 minutes on foot; Green Park and St James's Park about 12
- Neither has
- A cafe, or anywhere to eat or drink inside
The Royal Mews: the days it shuts, and the two months it does not
The 2026 Mews season ran from 5 March to 1 November. Inside the season it is "usually closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, except during July and August when we open 7 days a week", in the Royal Collection Trust's own words. That July and August exception is the detail most itineraries miss, and it is the reason a Tuesday in high summer works and a Tuesday in April does not.
| Dates | Opens | Last admission | Closes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 March - 24 October 2026 | 10:00 | 16:15 | 17:00 |
| 25 October - 1 November 2026 | 10:00 | 15:15 | 16:00 |
Prices are £18.00 for an adult, £12.00 for a young person aged 18 to 24, £9.00 for a child aged 5 to 17 and £9.00 for a disabled visitor, with under-5s and one access companion free. For two adults and two school-age children that is £54.00. A ticket can be converted into a 1-Year Pass giving unlimited return visits, with a £2 transaction fee each time you pre-book a return. As part of a working palace, the Mews can close at short notice.
A Tuesday visit works in July and August and fails in April. The Mews drops its Tuesday and Wednesday closures for those two months only, so check the month as well as the day of the week before you build a morning around it.
Photo: Jordiferrer · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons · resized
What is actually in the Mews
It is a quadrangle of stables and coach houses built in the gardens of Buckingham Palace in 1825, and it still does the job it was built for: the Mews handles all road travel for the King and the Royal Family, from carriage horses to cars. The visitor route runs through several stable and coach-house areas, mostly outdoors but mostly under cover, which makes it a decent choice in light rain and a cold one in a January wind.
- The Gold State Coach. Around 260 years old, used at the coronations of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 and King Charles III in 2023, and at the Platinum Jubilee pageant in 2022. It is far larger and far more heavily gilded in person than photographs suggest.
- The Diamond Jubilee State Coach. The modern one, built in Australia, used for the State Opening of Parliament and for state visits.
- The carriage horses. In their stalls when they are not working, with name plates over the boxes. Whether you see horses depends entirely on the day's duties.
- Livery and harness. The coachmen's coats, the tack, and a wooden pony that children can practise harnessing.
A multimedia guide is included in the ticket, and there are guided tours at set points in the main quadrangle. Eating and drinking are not allowed inside except bottled water, and you will be asked to put food and drink away in a closed bag before you go in. There is no cafe and no parking. If you want lunch afterwards, our guide to where to eat near Buckingham Palace covers the area, which is not generous.
The King's Gallery: open every day, and cheaper this year than next
The Gallery occupies the south-west corner of the palace and shows changing exhibitions drawn from the Royal Collection. It opens at 10:00 daily, last admission 16:15, closing 17:30. In September 2026 the exhibition was Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Style, a show of clothes, jewellery and design across a seventy-year reign.
| Ticket | 2026 price | 2027 price |
|---|---|---|
| Adult | £22.00 | £24.00 |
| Young person, 18-24 | £14.00 | £15.50 |
| Child, 5-17 | £11.00 | £12.00 |
| Disabled visitor | £11.00 | £12.00 |
| Access companion, and under-5s | Free | Free |
Two adults and two children pay £66.00 in 2026 and £72.00 in 2027. As with the Mews, food and drink are not permitted inside except bottled water, and there is no cafe.
The Gallery publishes its known closures in advance. The ones still ahead on its autumn 2026 list are 24 to 26 December, when it is closed, and Tuesday 26 January 2027, when it is closed all day. If your trip falls on one of those dates, swap the Gallery to another day rather than turning up at ten.
A conservatory, a chapel, a bomb site and then a gallery
The building on the site was one of three matching conservatories designed by John Nash for Buckingham Palace in the form of Ionic temples, and this one, on the south-west corner facing the garden, was finished in 1831. In 1843 it was converted into a private chapel for Queen Victoria. It was destroyed in an air raid in 1940, and at the suggestion of Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh the shell was redeveloped as a public gallery for the Royal Collection in 1962.
That history explains the odd shape of the interior and the fact that a royal palace has a purpose-built public art gallery bolted to one corner of it. It also explains why the Gallery's exhibitions change: it has no permanent hang, only a rotation out of a collection of more than a million objects.
Which one, if you only have two hours
Take the Mews if you are travelling with children, if the weather is fair, or if what you want from Buckingham Palace is spectacle. The Gold State Coach is the single most impressive object on either site and a child can see the point of it in four seconds. Allow about an hour.
Take the Gallery if you would rather look at things slowly, if it is raining hard, or if you have already seen a state coach somewhere else. Allow an hour to an hour and a half, more if the exhibition is a big one. It is also the better answer in November, when the Mews has closed for the winter and the Gallery has not.
Reasons to pick the Mews
- Cheaper: £18.00 against £22.00, and £54.00 against £66.00 for a family of four
- Children have something to do, including harnessing a wooden pony
- Working horses, if they are in
- Under an hour, so it slots either side of the 11:00 guard change
Reasons to pick the Gallery
- Open every day, all year, including the whole winter
- Entirely indoors and warm
- Exhibitions change, so a second visit is not a repeat
- Quiet on a weekday afternoon in a way nothing else at the palace is
Doing both in one morning is comfortable: the walk between the two doors is four minutes and neither needs a timed entry queue of any length. Two adults and two children would pay £120.00 for the pair in 2026. Whether a sightseeing pass beats that depends on the rest of your list; our worked examples in is the London Pass worth it? include the Mews, which is on both versions of the pass.
Access and mobility
The Royal Collection Trust describes the Mews as accessible, with an accessible toilet, a Changing Space and seating on the route. Concessionary rates apply to disabled visitors and a free access companion ticket can be booked online. Registered assistance dogs are welcome. The multimedia guide comes with British Sign Language and subtitles, and there is an audio-descriptive version for blind and partially sighted visitors. A sensory map and a photographic walk-through of the route are published as PDFs, which is genuinely useful if you want to know what you are walking into. Some staff are trained as Dementia Friends. Our general guide to accessible London covers the wider picture.
Getting there, and the eleven o'clock trap
Victoria is the station to use: rail, Underground and coach, about eight minutes on foot, with Victoria Coach Station ten minutes from the palace. Our guide to Victoria station explains the exits, and Pimlico and Victoria covers the streets around it. Buses 11, 211, C1 and C10 stop on Buckingham Palace Road.
The Trust's own advice around 11:00 is worth following exactly: if you are heading for the Mews while the Changing of the Guard is on, approach from the direction of Victoria and avoid coming from Green Park. Roads close before the ceremony, traffic crawls, and the crowd on the Green Park side is solid. The ceremony is usually over by 12:00. Sightseeing buses stop on Buckingham Palace Road near the Mews, about five minutes from the palace front; see which hop-on hop-off tour to choose.
Both sites are part of a working palace and can shut without notice, and both are affected by the general rhythm of London closures; bank holidays, Sundays and opening hours has the pattern. If you want the rest of ceremonial London on the same trip, Horse Guards and Whitehall is a 15-minute walk east and St James's Palace and Spencer House about the same to the north.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Queen's Gallery the same thing as The King's Gallery?
Yes. The gallery at Buckingham Palace was renamed The King's Gallery after the accession of King Charles III. The building, the entrance and the collection are unchanged, but older guidebooks, signage and resale sites still use the old name.
Can I visit the Royal Mews in winter?
No. The 2026 season ended on 1 November and the next season begins in spring. The King's Gallery stays open daily through the winter, apart from published closures around Christmas, so it is the winter alternative at the same address.
Will I see the horses at the Royal Mews?
Sometimes. The Mews is a working stable and the carriage horses are out when they are needed, so there is no guarantee on any given day. The coaches, cars, livery and harness are always there.
Is there anywhere to eat at the Royal Mews or The King's Gallery?
No. Neither has a cafe, and eating and drinking inside are not allowed except for bottled water, which you may be asked to put away in a closed bag. Plan to eat before or afterwards, in the streets towards Victoria rather than on Buckingham Palace Road itself.
How long should I allow for both?
About two and a half hours in total, including the four-minute walk between the two entrances. That is one hour for the Mews, an hour to ninety minutes for the Gallery depending on the exhibition, and a little slack for the security check at each door.
Sources
- Royal Collection Trust - The Royal Mews, Buckingham Palace (checked September 2026)
- Royal Collection Trust - The King's Gallery, Buckingham Palace (checked September 2026)
- Royal Collection Trust - Buckingham Palace (checked September 2026)
- Household Division - Changing the Guard calendar (checked September 2026)