Prince Philip and Greece share a story that most Londoners walk past every day without noticing. The Duke of Edinburgh was born on a dining room table in Corfu, baptised Greek Orthodox and carried out of Greece in a fruit box before his second birthday, and he then spent seven decades at the centre of British public life. This week the story has two timely hooks: the Christmas shop at the Royal Mews of Buckingham Palace has just reopened, and Friday 20 November marks 79 years since his wedding at Westminster Abbey. Here is a Greek guide to the London places that connect the prince to his birthplace, with a Greek stop near each one.
He was born on 10 June 1921 at Mon Repos, a villa on the edge of Corfu town, as Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, the only son of Prince Andrew of Greece and Princess Alice of Battenberg. In December 1922, after the defeat in Asia Minor and the coup that followed, a revolutionary court banished his father for life. The Royal Navy sent HMS Calypso to collect the family, and the baby travelled in a fruit box turned into a cot. He grew up between Paris, Britain and Germany, joined the Royal Navy, and in 1947 gave up his Greek and Danish titles, became a naturalised British subject and took the surname Mountbatten from his mother’s family. He died at Windsor Castle on 9 April 2021, two months short of his 100th birthday. For Greeks in London, the places below are where that story touches our city.
Buckingham Palace became the couple’s London home after the Queen’s accession in 1952, and it stayed the Duke’s working base until his retirement from public duties in 2017. The seasonal reason to go now is the Christmas shop in the Royal Mews, which Secret London reports reopened on Friday 13 November and runs until 4 January. It sits in a corner of the 200 year old stables on Buckingham Palace Road and sells chocolate, china, decorations and the kind of small gifts that travel well in a suitcase to Greece. Check the Royal Collection Trust site for hours, and do not expect a market: it is a shop, and a busy one at weekends.
Getting there: Victoria (Victoria, District and Circle lines) is a 5 minute walk; Green Park (Jubilee, Piccadilly and Victoria lines) is 10 minutes through the park.
Greek stop nearby: Chill House Coffee on Shepherd Street in Mayfair, 10 minutes on foot from the palace across Green Park, for a proper freddo and a koulouri before or after the Mews.
On the morning of 20 November 1947 the former Greek prince was created Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth and Baron Greenwich, and a few hours later he married Princess Elizabeth here, with the ceremony broadcast on BBC radio to a country still on rationing. The month before, he had been formally received into the Church of England. This Friday is the 79th anniversary, a good week to walk past the west towers and remember that the man at the altar had been born a Greek Orthodox prince in Corfu. The Abbey charges for entry, but the exterior and Parliament Square are free.
Getting there: Westminster (Jubilee, District and Circle lines) or St James’s Park (District and Circle lines), both under 5 minutes on foot.
In 1930, with his family scattered across Europe, the nine year old Philip was sent to Britain to live with his maternal grandmother, Victoria, Marchioness of Milford Haven, who had an apartment at Kensington Palace. It is one of the quieter chapters in the Prince Philip and Greece story: a boy who had left Corfu as a baby, learning to be British at the western end of Hyde Park. The state rooms are ticketed, but the gardens and the Round Pond are free.
Getting there: High Street Kensington (District and Circle lines) or Queensway (Central line), each about 10 minutes on foot.
Greek stop nearby: Halepi on Leinster Terrace in Bayswater, a 10 minute walk from the palace along the north side of Kensington Gardens, for kleftiko and a long Greek Cypriot lunch.
Philip was baptised in the Greek Orthodox rite at St George’s Church in the Old Fortress of Corfu, with Queen Olga, Crown Prince George, Lord Louis Mountbatten and the municipality of Corfu itself among his godparents. He left the Orthodox Church formally in October 1947, but his mother Princess Alice stayed devoutly Orthodox all her life. The London home of that faith is the Cathedral of St Sophia on Moscow Road, built by the Greek merchant community in the late 1870s and still the place where London’s Greeks gather for the big feasts. Step inside on a weekday afternoon for the mosaics, or come on a Sunday for the liturgy.
Getting there: Bayswater (District and Circle lines) and Queensway (Central line) are both 3 minutes away; Paddington is a 12 minute walk.
Greek stop nearby: It’s All Greek To Me on Praed Street by Paddington station, 12 minutes from the cathedral, for souvlaki, gyros and Greek street food until late.
One of the three titles he received on his wedding morning was Baron Greenwich, and the connection was not symbolic. After the honeymoon he went back to the Navy, first to a desk job at the Admiralty and then to a staff course at the Naval Staff College in Greenwich, inside what is now the Old Royal Naval College. The riverside grounds are free to walk around, the Painted Hall is ticketed, and the National Maritime Museum next door is free and full of the naval world he belonged to before royal duty took over.
Getting there: Cutty Sark (DLR) is 2 minutes from the gates; Greenwich (Southeastern and DLR) is 8 minutes; the Thames Clipper from Westminster takes about 40 minutes.
No guide to Prince Philip and Greece is complete without the house itself. Mon Repos is a neoclassical villa in the Palaeopolis area just south of Corfu town, built in the 1820s for the British High Commissioner and later used by the Greek royal family as a summer home. Today it houses the Museum of Palaeopolis, and the grounds, with ruins of ancient Kerkyra scattered among the trees, are open to walkers. Winter is the quiet season, when the old town belongs to locals again and a visit to the villa feels like a private appointment with history.
Getting there: Flights from London take about three hours and there are fewer direct routes in winter, so check connections via Athens too; Mon Repos is a 25 minute walk or a short bus ride from Corfu town centre.
Greek stop for the trip: Vozis Travel is a Greek travel agency in the UK that books flights, ferries and hotels for Corfu and the rest of Greece, with someone who answers the phone in Greek when plans change.
The Royal Mews and Westminster Abbey are a 15 minute walk apart along Birdcage Walk, so the two anniversary stops fit into one morning. Kensington Palace and St Sophia are 20 minutes apart and make a natural afternoon, with lunch at Halepi in between. Greenwich deserves its own day. To read more about Prince Philip and Greece before you set out, the Hellenic Centre in Marylebone regularly hosts talks on twentieth century Greek history.
While you follow the Prince Philip and Greece trail, the Greek calendar in London is full. The Greek List events page is the most complete list of Greek events in the UK, and listing an event is free. Here is what is on over the next ten days:
The Greek businesses in this guide are Greek List members. More than 100,000 Greeks and Cypriots in the UK read Greek List every month on the site, in the newsletter and in the Ellines sto Londino Facebook group, and Greek List listings rank first on Google for searches like “Greek restaurant near me” and “Greek lawyer in London”. If you want your business in front of them, start here.
Did we miss a London place with a Prince Philip and Greece connection? Tell us in the Facebook group Ellines sto Londino.
