Neil Sinclair, Greenwich tour guide and volunteer at Royal Museums Greenwich, kicks off our 2024 history talk programme with a detailed look at the Queens House - the first palladian style building constructed in Britain. Conceived following a royal row over a hunting accident in 1613, the Queens House has been a museum and art gallery since 1937. But over its approximately 400 years of history it has served as a royal love nest for King Charles II, a temporary home for the first astronomer royal, a studio for Dutch marine painters Willem van de Velde and son, a refuge for Huguenots escaping religious persecution in France, a school for sons and daughters of Royal Navy seafarers, and laterly a film set for block-buster period dramas The Crown, Bridgerton, and Oscar-winner The Favourite. Queen Henrietta Maria, for whom it was completed around 1638, called it her house of delights and together with her husband King Charles I filled it with exquisite artworks from the most gifted painters...