Buckingham Palace in London, was originally known as Buckingham House, the building which forms the core of today's palace. It was a sizable townhouse built for the Duke of Buckingham in 1703 and enlarged over the next 100 years, principally by architects John Nash and Edward Blore, forming three wings around a central courtyard.
Buckingham Palace became the official royal palace of the British monarch in London after the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837. The palace chapel was destroyed by a German bomb in World War II and the Queen's Gallery was built on the site and opened to the public in 1962 to exhibit works of art from the Royal Collection. It is one of London's top 3 visitor attractions and the changing of the guard (11am every day in summer, every other day in winter) is on the sightseeing list of most visitors and tourists in London.

The original early 19th-century interior designs, many of which still survive, included widespread use of scagliola (a technique for creating 'chips' in columns so they resemble marble) and blue and pink lapis, King Edward VII oversaw a partial redecoration in a Belle epoque cream and gold colour scheme.

The Buckingham Palace Garden is the largest private garden in London, originally landscaped by Capability Brown, the artificial lake was completed in 1828 and is supplied with water from the Serpentine, the river which runs through Hyde Park. You'll have to take the Inside Guide to London's word for it - as the Palace Gardens are off-limits to visitors and tourists. Garden parties are held annually and members of the civil service and forces, invariably get invited to attend once or twice in their lifetime.

The state rooms form the nucleus of the working Palace and are used regularly by Queen Elizabeth II and members of the royal family for official and state entertaining.

The Science Museum was founded in 1857 but it was only in 1885 that the Science Collections were renamed The Science Museum and the Art Collections were renamed the Art Museum, which later became the Victoria and Albert Museum. 

The Science Museum now holds a collection of over 300,000 items, including such famous exhibits as Stephenson's Rocket, Puffing Billy (the oldest surviving steam locomotive), the first jet engine, a reconstruction of Francis Crick and James Watsons' model of DNA, some of the earliest remaining steam engines, the Apollo 10 Command Module, a working example of Charles Babbage's Difference engine, the first prototype of the 10,000-year Clock of the Long Now, and documentation about the first typewriter.