The finishing touches are being put on the spectacular royal barge for Sunday's Diamond Jubilee river pageant.
The Spirit of Chartwell has been transformed into a vessel "fit for a queen" for the extravaganza, at the centre of the 1,000-strong flotilla as it makes its way down the Thames.
The Spirit of Chartwell is a luxury Thames river cruiser donated for the event by owner Philip Morrell and transformed in a project led by award-winning production designer Joseph Bennett.
Decorated with replica carvings and sporting a majestic red, gold and purple colour scheme, the vessel's design will echo the richly decorated royal barges of the 17th and 18th centuries.
It now sports an ornate, gilded prow sculpture featuring Old Father Thames, a pair of scaly, sharp-toothed classical dolphins - a symbol of the Thames - and the royal cipher at the centre.
The barge has been fitted with numerous ornate carvings and decorations
A red velvet banner decorated with a version of the royal coat-of-arms made from more than half a million gold-coloured buttons hangs from the stern.
The Queen and Duke will be seated on the vessel's top deck in ornate chairs under a gold-coloured canopy.
Flowers from the Queen's gardens will adorn the barge and take as their theme the Commonwealth, the Queen's 1953 Coronation and the Gold State Coach.
Havengore, the vessel that carried Sir Winston Churchill's coffin during his state funeral in 1965, will be used in the pageant by the Duke of York and his daughters Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, the Earl and Countess of Wessex, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and Prince and Princess Michael of Kent.
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