This remarkable survivor is featured as a highlight in our forthcoming Books, Manuscripts and Maps timed auction, running from Friday 24 April to Monday 4 May, offering collectors a rare opportunity to acquire an evocative piece of early Victorian court history.
12 March 2026
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On a single ledger sheet, written in a neat practiced hand, survives a wonderfully intimate relic of court life: a manuscript menu headed 'Her Majesty's Dinner, August 2nd 1837'. It is far more than a list of dishes. Alongside the full bill of fare, the document records the names of the kitchen staff and their assigned stations, quietly revealing the organised human machinery required to feed a royal table.
A Manuscript Menu for "Her Majesty's Dinner, August 2nd 1837" (£400-600)
The date is striking. The dinner was given at Buckingham Palace only five weeks after the Coronation of Queen Victoria, at a moment when the new reign was still finding its ceremonial rhythm.
The guest list reflects the diplomatic and aristocratic world that gathered around the young monarch: the Queen and the Duchess of Kent, alongside a circle of European diplomats and British grandees, including Count Pozzo di Borgo with members of his household, Count and Countess Ludolf, Count Mandelsloh, Prince Auersperg, Baron Taubenheim, and figures from the British court such as the Marchioness of Salisbury and the Countess of Charlemont. Also present were household officers and attendants, Lord Gardner, noted as a Lord-in-Waiting, and Colonel Buckley, the Queen's Equerry, together with friends and ladies-in-waiting, from Lady F Hastings to Baroness Lehzhen, and a cluster of 'Miss' companions whose inclusion hints at the social texture of an evening that was both official and personal.
A Manuscript Menu for "Her Majesty's Dinner, August 2nd 1837" (£400-600)
The menu itself demonstrates the grandeur - and stamina - expected of royal dining. It runs to seven courses, following the French-influenced structure fashionable in elite British households:
What feels most vivid, reading across the categories, is how recognisable some delights remain. Soufflé, whitebait and gâteau sit comfortably on modern menus, bridging nearly two centuries of changing taste. Yet this was indulgence on a scale few can imagine today; as if seven courses were not enough, the evening was supported by a buffet of beef, mutton, lamb, fowl and venison, among other provisions.
Taken together, the ledger sheet offers a rare double portrait: the public face of a newly crowned Queen entertaining the world, and the backstage reality of the kitchen brigade, named, placed and essential, making monarchy tangible through food.
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This remarkable survivor is featured as a highlight in our forthcoming Books, Manuscripts and Maps timed auction, running from Friday 24 April to Monday 4 May, offering collectors a rare opportunity to acquire an evocative piece of early Victorian court history.
12 March 2026
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