Take a Virtual Tour of Queen Mary’s Dollhouse

A dollhouse built for Queen Mary in the early 1920s is more luxurious than many life-sized homes. Given to the Queen as a gift for her efforts in World War I, it features running water, electric lights, working elevators, and flushing toilets.

British architect Sir Edwin Lutyens was behind the larger design, but more than 1500 artists and craftsmen fabricated miniatures for the structure. The dollhouse’s library includes original stories handwritten by famous authors of the period. Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Hardy, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle all contributed pieces to the collection. In the wine cellar, 1200 thimblefuls of real booze are kept in miniature bottles. The garage houses a Daimler and a 1923 Silver Ghost limousine.

The dollhouse is also one of the biggest ever made at a 1:12 scale (one inch to one foot). When thanking everyone responsible, Queen Mary called it "the most perfect present that anyone could receive." You can get a detailed look at the structure, which is now on display at Windsor Castle, in the video below.

[h/t BBC]