The Queen Marks the 60th Anniversary of Her Accession to the Throne and Looks Forward to Her Diamond Jubilee Year

    LONDON, ENGLAND, February 07, 2012 /24-7PressRelease/ -- The Queen celebrates the 60th anniversary of her accession to the throne today, Monday 6th February, and London marks the occasion with several special events including a 41-gun salute in Hyde Park, London, a 62-gun salute at the Tower of London, and a choral evensong at St Paul's Cathedral. While Accession Day is a day of celebration it is also one of private reflection for the Queen as it is also the anniversary of the death of her father, George VI.

In 2012, the year of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, London plays host to a programme of events and exhibitions with the main celebrations taking place on the anniversary of the weekend she was crowned, from Saturday 2nd to Tuesday 5th June 2012. With two back-to-back bank holidays, on Monday 4th and Tuesday 5th June, there will be an extra long weekend and visitors coming to London to join in the celebrations can find conveniently located accommodation on the website LondonTown.com where there is a list of London hotels and a feature on the Diamond Jubilee giving useful information on the events and exhibitions taking place that weekend and throughout the year.

Celebrations on the June weekend begin with the Queen attending the Epsom Derby on Saturday 2nd June and conclude with a Service of Thanksgiving at St Paul's Cathedral on Tuesday 5th June, both events giving visitors a chance to see the Queen surrounded by marching bands and mounted horses in a formal carriage procession.

Londoners will bring out the bunting for the Big Jubilee Lunch street party on Sunday 3rd June, the same day a spectacular river pageant will be staged with up to 1,000 boats assembled on the River Thames. The following day a BBC concert will take place at Buckingham Palace, and a network of 2,012 beacons will lit across the UK and the Commonwealth with the Queen lighting the National Beacon in London.

The river pageant, set to be a showpiece of the June celebrations, perpetuates a longstanding relationship the royalty has had with the Thames, using the river to display their power, patronage and pageantry and a special exhibition at the National Maritime Museum curated by historian David Starkey explores this relationship.

Visitors to London can already join in the Diamond Jubilee celebrations - at Windsor Castle, for example, a special exhibition of sixty photographs, images portraying the Queen on both official occasions and at relaxed family gatherings, opened on 4th February 2012.

Famous throughout the world, the Queen's face has been reproduced on more than 220 billion stamps throughout her reign and the Royal Mail today issued a special sheet of first class stamps to mark the 60th anniversary of the Queen's accession to the throne.

Portraiture has long been associated with the monarchy and there are two exhibitions in London which will highlight this historic relationship: the National Portrait Gallery explores the evolution of the way the Queen has been portrayed through sixty remarkable images (The Queen: Art and Image, 17th May - 21st October 2012); and the V&A celebrates the many faces of Her Majesty in her roles as princess, monarch and mother with an exhibition of photographs by Cecil Beaton (8th February - 22nd April 2012).

An exhibition of some of the finest diamonds from the Royal Collection will go on display at Buckingham Palace for the summer opening in 2012. One of four exhibitions staged by the Royal Collection, Diamonds: A Jubilee Celebration (16th March - 16th September 2012), includes an unprecedented display of the Queen's personal jewels. In the palace's neighbouring Queen's Gallery there will be the largest ever exhibition of Leonardo da Vinci's studies of the human body (4th May - 7th October 2012).

As the Queen today looked forward to a "special year" she issued a message to the nation, saying how "deeply moved we have been to receive so many kind messages about the Diamond Jubilee". For anyone planning a trip to London for the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, and especially if they intend to stay in London on the busy June Bank Holiday weekend when the river pageant alone is expected be seen by millions of people, it's advisable to book a hotel now through LondonTown.com where an extensive choice of hotels is available, whether travelling with a group of friends or visiting with family.

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