The Duchess of Cambridge, 38, and Prince William, 38 live in Apartment 1A at Kensington Palace which boasts a total of 20 rooms but one piece of outdated technology could put them at risk. Royal expert Christopher Warwick detailed the courtyard of Kensington Palace is still lit by gas lanterns. But the 20th-century technology emits carbon monoxide that can be deadly, according to an antique lighting expert. The fumes a lantern can produce are the same fumes that a running car would give off in a closed garage.
Speaking to True Royalty TV’s Royal Beat, Mr Warwick said: “It’s a wonderful 18th-century house.
“The wonderful thing is, it’s so quiet.
“I remember time after time coming out of apartment 1A after an evening and the gas lamps were on because the courtyard is lit by gas lanterns with the crowns above them.
“It’s a cobblestone courtyard and when you come out of that house into clock quarters, I’ve often said, ‘this is when the ghosts come out to play’.”
READ MORE: Kate Middleton warning: Duchess kept under strict Palace rules
Karen Wallis-Smith, who owns Fritz Fryer Antique Lighting – a company offering an extensive lighting sales, design and consultancy service, specialising in the high quality restoration of period fittings, issued a warning on gaslight technology.
Writing for Country Life magazine about gas lighting in Victorian times, she said: “Now for the dangerous bit… The occupants of any building with poor ventilation ran the risk of carbon monoxide suffocation.”
Of the Cambridges’ Kenstingon Palace abode, Royal biographer Ingrid Seward said: “It’s very beautiful, I always think it’s like the countryside in the middle of London.”
Royal Beat host Kate Thornton noted: “We must remember this was originally selected as a royal palace because it was a country home.
“It was somewhere to get out of the city in the village of Kensington.”
Mr Warwick continued: “That’s because William IV was an asthmatic and so he needed to get away from the Thames and Whitehall and this was the small village of Kensington.”
Ms Seward explained: “Harry felt Kensington Palace was a prison.
“He was saying that Kate can’t even walk her dog in Kensington Gardens like Diana used to go jogging.
“She can only walk it around the sort of private field.
“He said it is definitely a prison and he was desperate to get out.”
