Royal Burial Ground

The Royal Burial Ground is a cemetery used by the British royal family, on the Frogmore estate within the Home Park at Windsor, in the English county of Berkshire. It was established because the Royal Vault under St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle was becoming full: by 1928 there had been 23 interments in the vault since 1810. King George V allowed the burial ground to be made with the intention that in future only British sovereigns and those in the direct line of succession would be buried in the Royal Vault. Members of the royal family other than sovereigns and their consorts have generally been interred at Frogmore instead, among them Queen Victoria's children Princess Helena (1846-1923), Princess Louise (1848-1939) and Prince Arthur (1850-1942).

The ground lies beside the Royal Mausoleum, built in 1862 to house the tomb of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and close to the Duchess of Kent's Mausoleum in Frogmore Gardens, built in 1861 for Queen Victoria's mother. The Bishop of Oxford consecrated the burial ground on 23 October 1928.

Eight members of the royal family who had been interred in the Royal Vault at St George's Chapel were reburied at the new cemetery. The earliest of their deaths was that of Prince Harald of Schleswig-Holstein (1876-1876), son of Princess Helena of the United Kingdom; his coffin was placed in the same grave as that of his mother. Prince Francis of Teck (1870-1910), a brother of Queen Mary, had been put in the vault after his funeral at St George's Chapel on 5 November 1910. Princess Louise Margaret, Duchess of Connaught and Strathearn (1860-1917), wife of Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, and viceregal consort of Canada, was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium on the evening of 18 March 1917, the first member of the royal family to be cremated; her ashes were put in an oak coffin for a funeral at St George's Chapel the next day and then placed in the vault.

Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein (1831-1917), husband of Princess Helena, was interred in the vault after his funeral on 1 November 1917, and Lord Leopold Mountbatten (1889-1922), a grandson of Queen Victoria through his mother Princess Henry of Battenberg, after his on 1 May 1922. Princess Helena herself (1846-1923), a daughter of Queen Victoria, followed after her funeral on 15 June 1923. Two more had died only shortly before the ground was made: Adolphus Cambridge, 1st Marquess of Cambridge (1868-1927), formerly a Prince of Teck and a brother of Queen Mary, whose funeral was on 29 October 1927 and whose coffin is in the same grave as his wife's; and Rupert Cambridge, Viscount Trematon (1907-1928), son of Alexander Cambridge, 1st Earl of Athlone, whose funeral was on 19 April 1928. All eight were transferred to the Royal Burial Ground in late October 1928.

Margaret Cambridge, Marchioness of Cambridge (1873-1929), wife of the 1st Marquess, was interred after her funeral at St George's Chapel on 30 March 1929, her coffin placed in the same grave as her husband's. Princess Victoria of the United Kingdom (1868-1935), daughter of King Edward VII, had her funeral at St George's Chapel on 7 December 1935 and was interred on 8 January 1936. Prince Arthur of Connaught (1883-1938), son of the Duke of Connaught and a former Governor-General of South Africa, was placed in the Royal Vault after his funeral on 16 September 1938 and moved to the burial ground on 22 September. Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll (1848-1939), daughter of Queen Victoria, wife of the 9th Duke of Argyll and viceregal consort of Canada, was cremated at Golders Green; her ashes were taken in an oak coffin to St George's Chapel for a funeral on 12 December 1939, placed in the Royal Vault, and transferred to the burial ground on 13 March 1940. Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn (1850-1942), son of Queen Victoria and a former Governor General of Canada, had his funeral on 23 January 1942, was interred in the Royal Vault and was transferred to the burial ground on 18 March 1942. Princess Helena Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein (1870-1948), daughter of Princess Helena, was interred after her funeral on 17 March 1948.

Princess Marie Louise of Schleswig-Holstein (1872-1956), daughter of Prince Christian and Princess Helena and a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, was interred after her funeral on 14 December 1956. Alexander Cambridge, 1st Earl of Athlone (1874-1957), a brother of Queen Mary, formerly a Prince of Teck and a former Governor-General of South Africa and Governor General of Canada, followed on 19 January 1957, in a grave he shares with his wife. Prince George, Duke of Kent (1902-1942), son of King George V, had been interred in the Royal Vault after his funeral on 29 August 1942; he was transferred to the Royal Burial Ground on 29 August 1968, the day before the funeral of his wife, Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent (1906-1968), who was interred there on 30 August 1968.

Edward VIII (1894-1972), eldest son of King George V, later Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor, and a former Governor of the Bahamas, was interred after his funeral at St George's Chapel on 5 June 1972. Prince William of Gloucester (1941-1972), son of Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, was interred on 2 September 1972, and Sir Alexander Ramsay (1881-1972), husband of Princess Patricia of Connaught and a former Fifth Sea Lord, in October 1972. Lady Patricia Ramsay (1886-1974), daughter of the Duke of Connaught and wife of Sir Alexander, was interred in January 1974, and Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester (1900-1974), son of King George V and a former Governor-General of Australia, on 14 June 1974. Edward VIII is the one sovereign among those interred in the ground.

Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone (1883-1981), daughter of Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, wife of the 1st Earl of Athlone and viceregal consort of Canada and of South Africa, was the last surviving grandchild of Queen Victoria; she was interred in her husband's grave after her funeral on 8 January 1981. George Cambridge, 2nd Marquess of Cambridge (1895-1981) was interred on 23 April 1981, and his wife Dorothy Cambridge, Marchioness of Cambridge (1899-1988), in the same grave in April 1988. Wallis, Duchess of Windsor (1896-1986) was interred next to the grave of her husband, the Duke of Windsor, after her funeral on 29 April 1986.

Lady May Abel Smith (1906-1994), daughter of the Earl and Countess of Athlone, was interred on 9 June 1994, and the ashes of her husband Sir Henry Abel Smith (1900-1993), a former Governor of Queensland, were buried in the same grave at her funeral. Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester (1901-2004), wife of Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, and viceregal consort of Australia, was interred after her funeral on 5 November 2004, and Sir Angus Ogilvy (1928-2004), husband of Princess Alexandra of Kent, after his on 5 January 2005. Katharine, Duchess of Kent (1933-2025), wife of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, was interred after a funeral at Westminster Cathedral on 16 September 2025.

Queen Maria, Queen Mother of Yugoslavia (1900-1961), a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria and wife of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia, died in London and was interred in the ground after her funeral on 2 July 1961. Her remains were exhumed on 26 April 2013 and transferred to Oplenac, in Serbia, on 28 April 2013.

The statue overlooking the ground is a copy of the Christ of the Danish neoclassical sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen, a work originally conceived in 1821. The Frogmore copy was cast in 1903 at the Lauritz Rasmussen bronze foundry in Copenhagen, and was commissioned by the Danish-born Queen Alexandra in memory of her mother-in-law, Queen Victoria.

Frogmore House and its gardens are usually open to the public on about six days each year, around Easter and the August Bank Holiday, and on those days the Royal Burial Ground may be viewed from around its perimeter. The Duchess of Kent's Mausoleum may also be seen from outside, but is never open to the public. The Royal Mausoleum, where Queen Victoria and Prince Albert are buried, is structurally unsound and has been closed to the public since 2007; it had previously opened on the Wednesday nearest Queen Victoria's birthday, 24 May, and occasionally on other days when the grounds were open. It was reported in August 2011 that repairs might not be completed for a further ten years, and restoration began in June 2018, to create a dry moat around the building and to replace the roof against the long-standing problem of water infiltration.