Inside Kensington Palace: The King's State Apartments and Queen Victoria's Rooms

The first room is the staircase, and it is meant to impress. William Kent painted it between 1725 and 1727 for George I, replacing Christopher Wren's plain wooden panelling with a crowd of real members of the king's court.

Among them are Yeomen of the Guard in red, Mehmet von Königstreu, the Keeper of the Privy Purse, with his wife Marie Hedwig, and Ulric, the king's Polish page. There is also Peter, a boy found living alone in the woods in Germany and brought to court, who became the subject of intense scientific and public interest.

Look up to find Kent himself. He painted his own portrait on the ceiling, in a brown turban with an artist's palette, next to the actress Elizabeth Butler.

The State Apartments were built for ceremony, which is why they feel so sparse. In the Presence Chamber the king received courtiers, ministers and ambassadors, and the fireplace carries limewood carvings by Grinling Gibbons, with cherubs that were once painted white. Next door, the Privy Chamber was Queen Caroline's favourite room for entertaining, under a Kent ceiling of 1723 and hung with Mortlake tapestries commissioned by Charles I.

The Cupola Room is the most lavish of all and was Kent's first royal commission. It holds the Temple of the Four Great Monarchies, a musical clock that Charles Clay spent 20 years perfecting at a cost of more than £2,000. In the King's Drawing Room, courtiers came to ask for favours, and George II kept a Vasari painting of Venus and Cupid that Queen Caroline disliked.

In the King's Gallery, William III played with his nephew and caught the illness that led to his death in 1702. Kent later redesigned the gallery to show off fine paintings from the Royal Collection.

Victoria: A Royal Childhood is the palace's permanent display on the young queen, set in the rooms where she was born and raised. It follows her from indulged princess to the girl who became queen at 18, through the Birth Room, Educating Victoria, Victoria at Play, Family Feuds and the Royal Performance room.

Among the objects are a scrapbook made by her governess, Baroness Lehzen, and Victoria's doll's house. The Regency wallpapers and colours were recreated from archive research and the Duke of Kent's own letters about the rooms.

Victoria later described her childhood home as bleak and threadbare. The curators' research suggests it was actually comfortable and colourful, and the rooms have been set out that way.