Doll's House: A Family's Portrait and Representations

Queen Mary's five foot tall Dolls' House opens its tiny doors to the public

At five feet tall, this miniature house is priceless. From the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost in the garage to the original works by Arthur Conan Doyle and Rudyard Kipling, it is a perfectly preserved piece of history.

Designed by renowned architect Sir Edwin Lutyens and built in 1924 for Queen Mary, wife of George V, the dolls house reveals a small slice of the royals' high life.

Its tiny contents, on a scale of one inch to one foot, range from the Lux flakes by the kitchen sink to electricty, running water and even a lift.

The house -- now on show at Windsor Castle - has such attention to detail that it has proved to be a valuable document of social history, according to author Lucinda Lambton in her new book,The Queen's Dolls' House.

The glimpse into a bygone age was inspired by Princess Marie Louise, Queen Vicoria's grand-daughter, who asked Lutyens, the architect of the Cenotaph, to build it for Queen Mary.

She was a famous and obsessive collector of 'tiny craft' and the gift would be a mark of nation's thanks for her public loyalty during the First World War.

'There could be no better gift for her than a dolls' house filled with diminutive treasures,' said Lucinda.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1323346/Queens-Dolls-House-miniature-library-opens-public-Windsor-Castle.html#ixzz1CoykRDQP