St James's Palace still serves as the official seat of the British monarchy, though no sovereign has actually lived here since George III went mad and Victoria found it poky.

Built by Henry VIII in the 1530s on the site of a leper hospital, it became the principal royal residence after Whitehall Palace burned down in 1698. Foreign ambassadors are still formally accredited to the Court of St James's, a quirk that makes this red-brick Tudor survivor, tucked behind Pall Mall, more diplomatically important than Buckingham Palace.

The palace witnessed Charles I spending his last night before execution and sheltered a young Princess Elizabeth and Princess Anne before they became queens. Its Chapel Royal hosted the weddings of Queen Victoria and George V.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours trace the palace's evolution from medieval leper colony to royal nerve centre, revealing how this working palace shaped British constitutional history and explaining why every British monarch is still proclaimed from its balcony.