Buckingham Palace is famous for guards, garden parties and gilded railings — not middle-of-the-ground fielding. Yet the London landmark has a genuine cricketing history, and Prince William has helped bring the game back to the royal garden, giving travellers a fresh reason to time a London trip around the Palace's summer openings.
Cricket at the Palace goes back further than most people realise. Matches were played on the garden lawn in the mid-19th century, but the ground then went quiet for generations. That changed in 2018, when a match was staged on the lawn for the first time in over a century — part of the run-up to the cricket World Cup and a nod to the game's royal connections, with the Duke of Cambridge's backing helping put the fixture together. The idea was simple: use the garden the way it was historically used, and let a bit of the ceremonial armour plating down.
For visitors, the real takeaway is that the garden itself is the star. During the summer, the Palace opens its grounds for self-guided tours, and the lawn at the centre of these events is the same one that has hosted royal garden parties and, occasionally, a cricket ball. It's one of the largest private gardens in London, spanning 39 acres, with a lake, a rare-wildflower meadow, a rose garden and more than 1,000 trees. Walking it, you're minutes from the Mall but it feels oddly rural.
The cricket angle is a nice story, but the practical hook is access. Buckingham Palace's State Rooms and garden are open to the public only in summer and on selected dates the rest of the year, so a casual stroll isn't possible. If you want to see the lawn where the game came back, you'll need to book a ticket for an opening period — the garden-only tours are the cheaper and often less crowded option compared with the full State Rooms visit.
Who is this for? Anyone building a London itinerary around the classics — palaces, parks, pageantry — who wants to do them slightly differently. Pair a garden ticket with a walk down the Mall to St James's Park, and you've got an afternoon that beats queuing for the same guard-changing photo as everyone else. Cricket fans, meanwhile, can add it to a list that already includes Lord's a couple of miles up the road — the Palace pitch makes a quirky companion piece to the sport's actual headquarters.
Access dates and ticket details change year to year, so check the Royal Collection Trust website before you travel rather than turning up on the day.
