Treetops: The day a princess became a queen

In 1952, Princess Elizabeth became queen while staying at the Treetops Hotel in Kenya. But she wouldn't make the discovery until hours later.

The 25-year-old Princess Elizabeth and her husband were on five-month royal tour of the Commonwealth, and their first stop was Kenya.

The overnight trip to Treetops, a lodge in the Aberdare National Park, was supposed to be a relaxing break. But the princess didn’t yet know that, back in Britain, her father King George VI, had died in his sleep.

BBC correspondent Frank Gillard was following the trip and sent back a report after the news broke on February 6th. Jane Wilkinson has been through the BBC archives to find out what happened.

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(Photo: Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh in Kenya, 1952. Credit: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)