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Sunday 16 June 2013

Happy Birthday Liz

The Queen's birthday celebrations include a 41 gun salute, fired by The King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery.  Yesterday the ritual took place in Green Park, next to Buckingham Palace.  And no, I don't know why it's called the King's troop and not the Queen's.  Nor do I know why it's called a gun salute and not a canon salute. 

Some gun salute trivia which I'm sure you're keen to know: the number of rounds fired depends on where they are fired: 21 in a park add another 20 if it is a royal park (like yesterday); 62 if it is from the Tower of London; where the Honourable Artillery Company do the honours.

The most rounds ever fired was 124 when the Queen's birthday and the Dukes birthday were on the same day and were fired from the Tower. (62 each). 

8 comments:

jennyfreckles said...

I imagine it could give you a bit of a surprise if you just happened to be walking in the park at the time!

Adullamite said...

Yeah! You got that one just right!
Great shot.
Called the 'Kings troop' because George VI decided to keep this troop in 1947 for ceremonials while the rest were mechanised. The queen kept 'Kings' for a memory to her dad.
That picture is very much the way they operated with those guns in August 1914!
Except they got shot.

Andy said...

She deserves the honour.

John said...

Must have frightened te hell out of tourists who didn't know what was going on. If thee's one thing we do well, it's ceremonial.

Sharon said...

This is an amazing sight. Thanks for posting it. The last time I was in London, the Queen & King of Norway were visiting and their yacht pulled up across the river from where we were staying. We got to hear a gun salute from The Tower as the Queen's boat whisked them up the river. There was quite a ceremony involved in picking them up from their yacht. I loved watching it.

Mandy said...

Great trivia and fabulous photo! You really captured the atmosphere, smoky as it must have been.

biebkriebels said...

Here we only have canonshots at births and last time at the inauguration. But is always in the Hague far away from here so I never have heard the sound of it. But it gives the artillery a lot to do, 62 when can they otherwise practise it.

LONDONLULU said...

Love the you can see the canon smoke! I enjoyed the gun salute trivia very much, who would've known:)

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