Mourners have placed floral tributes outside the former townhouse where Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II was born, 96 ago, now the site of a high-end Chinese restaurant. Queen Elizabeth, whose state funeral is being held today, died at the majestic Balmoral Castle, but her birthplace was surprisingly normal by Royal Standards.
The then Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor was born on April 21st, 1926 at 17, Bruton Street, an 18th-century townhouse on a bustling street in Mayfair, London. The townhouse, which had belonged to her maternal grandparents the Earl and Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne, was demolished long ago, although the precise date is unknown.
The site is now the location of the Mayfair branch of Hakkasan, a Michelin-starred, modern Chinese cuisine restaurant brand with 10 locations worldwide, as well as a corporate office block. It makes for a far different setting to Buckingham Palace, where the Queen carried out the majority of her royal duties.
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Buzzfeed reporter Ade Onibada, who goes by the Twitter handle @SincerelyAde, today tweeted photos showing members of the public laying flowers for Her Majesty outside the deceptively ordinary-looking building.
Two plaques on the wall outside appear to be the only giveaway of the site's very special place in British history.
One of the plaques, put there to mark the Diamond Jubilee in 2012, reads as follows: “On this site at 17 Bruton Street stood the townhouse of the Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne where Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor, later to become Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II was born on 21 April 1926."
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Onibada wrote: "A small crowd has gathered at 17 Bruton street, famously known as where Queen Elizabeth was born. What was once a townhouse is now…Haakasan."
As previously reported by BBC News, the Queen's parents King George VI and Queen Elizabeth moved into the house just a few short weeks before her birth. Writing about her newborn granddaughter in her diary at the time, Her Majesty's grandmother Queen Mary joyfully described her as "a little darling, with a lovely complexion and pretty fair hair".
At the time, it was not expected that the baby princess would be ever likely to become monarch, with her destiny changing forever following the shock abdication of her uncle King Edward VIII.
You can leave your tributes to Queen Elizabeth II here
