St. James's Palace

St. James's Palace is defined by its north gatehouse, a four-story structure of red brick featuring two octagonal towers and a central clock. King Henry the Eighth commissioned the palace between fifteen thirty-one and fifteen thirty-six on the site of a former leper hospital. While intended as a place for the monarch to escape the formality of the main court, it became the principal residence of the British monarchy for over three centuries until Queen Victoria moved to Buckingham Palace in eighteen thirty-seven.