Buckingham Palace forms the architectural core of the palace was built for the first Duke of Buckingham and Normanby in 1703 to the design of William Winde. The style chosen was of a large, three-floored central block with two smaller flanking service wings. Buckingham House was eventually sold by Buckingham's natural son, Sir Charles Sheffield, in 1761 to George III for £21,000. Sheffield's leasehold on the mulberry garden site, the freehold of which was still owned by the royal family, was due to expire in 1774. Under the new Crown ownership, the building was originally intended as a private retreat for King
Garden at Buckingham Palace of the palace rebuilding by William Townsend Aiton of Kew Gardens and John Nash. The great manmade lake was completed in 1828 and is supplied with water by the Serpentine Lake in Hyde Park. According to Palace tourist guides, the garden is maintained by approximately eight full-time gardeners, with two or three part-timers. The trees include plane, Indian chestnut, silver maple, and a swamp cypress. In the south-west corner, there is a single surviving mulberry tree from the plantation installed by King James I of England when he unsuccessfully attempted to breed silkworms in the Mulberry Garden on the Buckingham