Be inspired by our Royal palaces to create innovative and commercial product
Brand licensing
Header image: © Historic Royal Palaces / Cole & Son
Historic Royal Palaces’ award-winning licensing programme has much to offer our current and new licensing partners.
Historic Royal Palaces are a team of people who love and look after six of the most wonderful palaces in the world - the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, Banqueting House, Kensington Palace, Kew Palace and Hillsborough Castle and Gardens.
Across our palaces there is over a thousand years of design inspiration to be found through the different eras - from medieval illuminations, Tudor splendour, Jacobean exuberance to Georgian classicism and Victorian magnificence - in creating products of the highest quality with distinction and style.
We work in collaboration with our licensing partners to develop and design innovative product that reflects our cultural heritage.
The Historic Royal Palaces’ brand offers longevity with global recognition and appeal and enables us to continue our legacy of conserving these magnificent royal palaces and gardens for everyone to enjoy now, and in the future.
Inspiring Design
We run an inspired design programme where inspiration can be taken from five key themes, including:
- Architecture – galleries, golden gates and gargoyles
- Interiors – intricate carvings, magnificent murals and sumptuous ceilings
- Fashion – silk stockings, ceremonial suits and royal court dresses
- Collections – crowns, clocks and ceramics
- Gardens – great vines, royal roses and amazing mazes
Inspired by the talented architects, interior designers, craftspeople and landscape artists of the day; including Christopher Wren, Antonio Verrio, Grinling Gibbons, William Kent, Jean Tijou and Lancelot 'Capability' Brown, to name but a few.
© Historic Royal Palaces / Cole & Son
Image: © Historical Royal Palaces/The Royal Mail
Our purpose
A Historic Past, A Sustainable Future
As an independent charity for everyone, Historic Royal Palaces is committed to conserving and preserving our cultural heritage for generations to come. This enables everyone to forge meaningful connections with the past, present and future.
Our purpose is to stir every spirit to inspire and provoke change. We do this by being open, colourful, provocative, personal and always evolving. Our licensing partnerships are incredibly important for us to continue our work and stay true to our cause of conserving and preserving these magnificent palaces for everyone to enjoy.
Working together
We offer a unique association to our licensing partners, in granting them the right to use our iconic Royal Brand and Assets, and providing a commercial opportunity in creating innovative product design. Our team of licensing professionals have the experience, resources and knowledge to help you make the most of a licensed partnership.
Current Historic Royal Palaces' Licensing partners include:
- Ashley Wilde, bedlinen and curtains for lifestyle and interior brands.
- Candlelight, home décor and home accessories.
- Cole & Son, luxury wallpaper experts.
- Freckleface Home Fragrance, British made candles and diffusers.
- GIAT, bespoke Gin In A Tin.
- GP & J Baker, interior fabrics specialists.
- Harney & Sons, our longest serving licensing partner producing our bespoke range of fine teas.
- Harvey’s of Edinburgh Speyside Distillery, Royal Choice single malt whisky.
- Olympia Le Tan, limited edition embroidered clutch bags.
- Percy & Reed, Haircare specialists.
- Soho Lighting, elegant and innovative lighting for the home and garden.
- The Royal Mail, commemorative stamps and gifts.
- The Royal Mint, unique collectible coins.
With many more in discussion with our Licensing Team.
We work closely with our Curatorial, Conservation and Gardens specialist teams to ensure authentic provenance, factual accuracy and integrity is in keeping with our brand, stories, and history.
Our Brand Guidelines
We provide extensive brand and packaging guidelines, which include a new Style Guide. This introduces three individual Toolkits – Iconography, Elegance in Excess and Palace Stories. Each kit includes artwork files of badges, compositions and patterns and a wonderful colour palette to inspire new product collections with an update on our brand packaging to create a cohesive look.
We also offer further artwork resources with over 100,000 images from our Image Library, 10,000 items of Royal Ceremonial Dress, architectural prints and drawings, paintings and illustrations, and over 250 original botanical drawings, plus much, much more!
As well as the creative support we can give, there are PR and Marketing benefits, allowing use of our iconic palaces as a backdrop for photoshoots, product launches and press and promotional events.
Image: © Historic Royal Palaces/GP & J Baker
Our partners
Our partners use our royal brand on commercial licensed product collections to reach domestic as well as international markets, including the UK, Europe, USA and Asia.
Licensed products endorsed by Historic Royal Palaces carry a quality and authenticity with each unique and distinct item created. We work with licensing partners considered the 'best in their field', who share our brand values of innovation, craftsmanship, beauty, style, storytelling and sustainability.
All our products are a piece of luxury and heritage for now and for future generations to enjoy.
Partner testimonials
"We are delighted to work with Historic Royal Palaces. The wealth of inspiration, curatorial support and assets provided have supported two highly successful coin collections and we’re currently rolling out a third. Our collectors love the royal heritage uniquely commemorated on these collections and the wonderfully rich stories we can tell in collaboration with the experts at Historic Royal Palaces."
Ruth Scuton - Product Manager, The Royal Mint.
Image: © Historical Royal Palaces/The Royal Mint
“We have always put fine fragrance into every formula we make at Percy & Reed, as it’s important that the hair smells as beautiful as it looks. We’ve loved collaborating with Historic Royal Palaces to create this new fragrance inspired by Kensington Palace. It really captures our London heritage and history, especially as the use of perfume and fragrance in the hair began centuries ago. Each note has been selected, not only for what it brings to the scent, but also based on its meaning, which makes it even more special.”
Paul Percival - Brand Founder and Leading Session Stylist, Percy & Reed.
Image: © Historic Royal Palaces / Percy & Reed
Image: Rockingham Mantua Dress from the 2023 Crown to Couture Exhibition (now closed) / © Historic Royal Palaces
Our exhibitions
Our successful exhibition programme is a great way for potential licensees to explore some of our wonderful assets on show.
Once you become a licensing partner, you will be given private views and full access behind the scenes to these archives, which can inspire the development of new collections, with significant specialist insight and marketing support.
Untold Lives The Indian Army at the Palace Life Through a Royal LensFind out more
To find out more about Historic Royal Palaces’ licensing opportunities, please contact the team at: licensing@hrp.org.uk.