Buckingham Palace has announced that the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee next year will be celebrated with street parties and large-scale national events.
A televised BBC concert in Buckingham Palace is planned alongside a Big Jubilee Sunday Lunch – where neighbours and friends across the UK are intended to eat together to mark the 60th anniversary of the Queen’s reign.
Diamond Jubilee Beacons will be lit across the country, a service of thanksgiving will be held at St Paul’s Cathedral and a formal carriage procession staged.
A special royal barge will lead a flotilla of 1,000 boats down the Thames in the grandest river pageant since the reign of Charles II.
The celebrations will take place over a special four-day bank holiday weekend next June but organisers say the details have still to be finalised.
Britain will have an extended four-day weekend from June 2-5 to celebrate while other Commonwealth realms, including Canada, Australia and New Zealand, will stage their own events.
Other initiatives being discussed include inviting the public to help plant 6million trees under the Jubilee Woods Project and the creation of Britain’s newest city.
Elizabeth is the second longest-reigning monarch in British history, after her great-great-grandmother queen Victoria, who was monarch for more than 63 years.
On Saturday June 2, the monarch, an avid horse breeder and racer, will attend the Epsom Derby, one of Britain’s five classics and its richest horse race.
The Sunday will see traditional street parties and picnics, one of the enduring features of the 1977 silver jubilee.
Monday, June 4, the spring public holiday, will feature a concert at Buckingham Palace, involving artists from Britain and around the Commonwealth.
The 2002 golden jubilee concert memorably saw Queen guitarist Brian May playing the national anthem on the palace roof.
Finally on the Tuesday, a special jubilee public holiday, 2,012 beacons will be lit across Britain, with Queen Elizabeth lighting the national beacon.
Beacons have played a significant role in British history. They were lit across England in 1588 to warn of the approaching Spanish Armada.
