A Blues and Royals mounted guard at Horse Guards.
HORSE GUARDS AND HYDE PARK BARRACKS
The Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment, assigned to protect the Sovereign, can be seen at two places in London. Hyde Park Barracks are on the southern side of the park, about a mile from Buckingham Palace. The other location is Horse Guards, which is a building rather than an organization, facing Whitehall and closer to the Palace.
The bases and barracks of the British Army have always been easier to describe than its regiments and roles. In 1990, following the Army’s endless tradition of amalgamation, the Life Guards (LG) and the Blues and Royals (RHG/D) became the Household Cavalry (HCav).
The Household Cavalry is itself made up of the Household Cavalry Regiment (HCR) and the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment (HCMR). The operational role of the HCR in combat is reconnaissance, while the HCMR, comprising from a squadron each from the Life Guards and the Blues and Royals, combines ceremonial functions alongside an internal security role.
The stables of the Queen’s Life Guard at Horse Guards.
Despite amalgamation, each regiment has been allowed to retain its separate identity, regimental headquarters, uniforms and accoutrements. The Life Guards, the senior regiment in the British Army, with a Royalist history, has amassed battle honours from Waterloo to Basra. The Blues and Royals, formed in 1969 by a merger of the Royal Horse Guards (Blues) and the Royal Dragoons (1st Dragoons), can trace their lineage back to the New Model Army; battle honours span the Peninsular War, Balaclava and the Falklands.
Horse Guards, where the permanent protection for the Queen is positioned, is a Palladian-style Grade I listed building between Whitehall and Horse Guards Parade. The current structure was built between 1751 and 1753 on the site of the former tiltyard (jousting courtyard) of the Palace of Westminster. A strange feature is the double-sided clock high over the archway, with two o’clock on its face marked with a black disc, said to commemorate the hour of execution of King Charles I in 1649 at the Banqueting House opposite.
Most of the ground floor here consists of stables that can accommodate 108 horses in restricted movement stalls, each with a feed-rack. The ‘Cavalry Blacks’ – traditional crossbreeds of the Irish draught and thoroughbred – are predominantly black touched with white markings. Other breeds include greys for trumpeters, all-black officers’ chargers and drum horses. These are usually shires and Clydesdales, which can stand as high as nineteen hands, and are selected and trained to carry heavy solid silver kettledrums.
Guard is provided on alternate days by the Life Guards and the Blues and Royals. Two dismounted sentries are on duty until the gates are shut at 2000 hours, after which just one sentry remains until 0700 hours; once the gates are closed, no one, unless in possession of the password, can gain admission to Horse Guards. A guard changing ceremony – properly called Guard Mounting – is a daily event held at 1100 hours and 1000 hours on Sundays, lasting for thirty minutes.
The HCMR’s main base is Hyde Park Barracks, formerly known as Knightsbridge Barracks, a name frequently still used. Barracks have existed on the site in 1795, but the current modern buildings were designed by architect Basil Spence and date from 1970. An accommodation tower block, called Peninsular Tower, controversial in its time, dominates. The barracks has its own a smithy and almost 300 horses are maintained in extensive stables on two levels, with ramps electrically wired to de-ice the surfaces.
The forge at Hyde Park Barracks.
The Dress Store at Hyde Park is filled with traditional and exotic military clothing. A drum major’s state dress for the Sovereign’s birthday parade (Trooping the Colour) includes a gold and heavily embroidered tunic the design of which dates from the Restoration, as do dark blue velvet jockey hats for musicians. Solid silver drums, weighing 66 lb (30 kg) apiece, are carried by the drum horses, which traditionally are named after Greek mythological heroes. Life Guards wear their chinstraps beneath the lower lip, while Blues and Royals wear straps beneath the chin. A holder on a helmet’s pinnacle supports a faux horsehair plume, white plumes for Life Guards and scarlet for Blues and Royals. Tunic colours are red for the Life Guards and blue for the Blues and Royals. A polished steel breast and back plate called a cuirass is worn for mounted duty.
In July 1982, members of the Provisional IRA detonated a large nail bomb during a Changing of the Guard procession from Hyde Park Barracks to Buckingham Palace. Three Blues and Royals soldiers were killed outright, with a fourth dying within three days from his injuries. Other troopers sustained serious injuries, as did several spectators who were peppered with shrapnel, while seven horses were killed or subsequently put down because of injuries. When passing the site of the bombing, soldiers bring their swords down from slope to carry, combined with an eyes left or an eyes right, as a sign of respect.