Royal Pavilion, Aldershot

The Royal Pavilion, also known as the Queen's Pavilion, was a royal residence located at Aldershot in Hampshire. The most unpretentious of all royal residences, it was built by George Myers as a wooden structure in 1855 for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert for use by members of the Royal Family when in Aldershot to attend military reviews and other occasions. Located off the Farnborough Road opposite the former West Cavalry Barracks, nearby are the Royal Garrison Church and the Wellington Statue. It was dismantled in the early 1960s. Today the site is the location of the Royal Pavilion Office Park.

Before the establishment of the 'Camp at Aldershot', the British Army did not have any single permanent camp for training troops on a large scale. Prince Albert realised that the training and resources of the British Army compared unfavourably with some European armies and lobbied for something to be done. In 1852, following the death of The Iron Duke, a group of reformers, which included Prince Albert, forged an alliance that would seek to improve the training of the Army. Consequently, in January 1854 some 25,000 acres of Aldershot Heath were purchased with the view to setting up a permanent military camp in the area. The outbreak of the Crimean War later in the same year led to a military mobilisation and in 1855 12,000 huts were constructed in the Aldershot area to house the 20,000 militia who had been called up.

As Queen Victoria and Prince Albert showed a keen interest in the establishment and the development of Aldershot as a garrison town, on 2 April 1854 Prince Albert, accompanied by Lord Hardinge, Major General Sir Frederick Smith and a Lieutenant Nicholson inspected a number of sites in the Aldershot area before selecting a small hill overlooking the Long Valley and Caesar's Camp. Prince Albert instructed Lieutenant Nicholson to ride around the approved site dropping sticks from a bundle of pea sticks to mark the boundaries for the proposed Pavilion.

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