Short answers, pulled from the story.
Historic Royal Palaces is an independent charity that manages six unoccupied royal sites: the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, the State Apartments and Orangery at Kensington Palace, the Banqueting House on Whitehall, Kew Palace with Queen Charlotte's Cottage and the Great Pagoda, and Hillsborough Castle in County Down, Northern Ireland. It has managed the London palaces since 1989 and Hillsborough Castle since 2014.
Historic Royal Palaces receives no funding from either the Government or the Crown. All of its costs are met by self-generated income, primarily from ticket admissions, retail sales, membership fees, and events. In the year to the 31st of March 2025, total income was £138.6 million.
A catastrophic fire at Hampton Court Palace in 1986 exposed serious deficiencies in the fragmented management of the unoccupied royal palaces. On the 1st of October 1989, the palaces were transferred to a new dedicated executive agency called Historic Royal Palaces. The organisation became an independent charity in 1998.
The Tower of London received 2,817,852 visitors in 2025, making it by far the most visited site managed by Historic Royal Palaces. It also generates the largest share of admission income, accounting for 81 percent of the charity's total ticket revenue in the year to March 2025.
All Historic Royal Palaces sites closed on the 20th of March 2020. Income for the 2020-21 financial year fell to £12 million, a reduction of 89 percent against budget. The charity received a £3 million grant from the Culture Recovery Fund and a £40 million repayable loan in January 2021, but ultimately 284 staff were made redundant.
The Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection is a collection of approximately 11,000 items of British royal and court ceremonial dress, established at Kensington Palace in 1984. It includes notable pieces such as the Rockingham Mantua and the Travolta Dress.