Thousands are getting ready to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee ahead of the Bank Holiday weekend.
As well as the focal point of national celebrations of the Queen’s 70-year-reign, Westminster will also play to host to over 10 street parties, although the Council has refused to disclose the exact number.
Over 2000 events are taking place up and down the UK over the extended bank holiday weekend.
The weekend will kick off on Thursday, the “Spring Bank Holiday” moved from its usual position of the first Monday of June. The day will be marked with the Queen’s birthday parade, Trooping the Colour, featuring over 1400 soldiers, 200 horses and 400 musicians.
A service of thanksgiving will take place at St Paul’s Cathedral on Friday. On Saturday there will be the Epsom Derby followed by the BBC concert “Platinum Party at the Palace” headlined by acts including Diana Ross and Sir Rod Stewart, during which the Queen will light the national beacon.
On Sunday, the last day of the Bank Holiday extended weekend, up to 70,000 communities will gather for the “Big Jubilee Lunch”. There will also be a Platinum Jubilee pageant on The Mall with approximately 5000 people, featuring a “river of hope” of silk flags.
You can find out what’s going on near you around Westminster from the map below.
To mark the occasion, pictures of the Queen from the National Portrait Gallery (which is currently closed due to renovation) were projected onto Marble Arch. These showed several points of her life, from a portrait in 1947 before her wedding day to a picture by David Bailey commissioned in 2014 for her 88th birthday.
Dr Nicholas Cullinan, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, said: “The National Portrait Gallery is home to the largest collection of portraits in the world, and over a thousand of those images depict Her Majesty The Queen.
“While our building is closed as the Gallery undergoes a major transformation, and on the occasion of Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee, we are delighted to be bringing some of the most iconic portraits spanning the Queen’s unprecedented 70-year reign into such a prominent public space.”
Main image credit: Marble Arch BID.