BUCHAREST.- The heart of British-born Queen Marie of Romania is to be laid to rest in the palace in the Carpathian Mountains where she died, ending a journey of more than 70 years, the former royal family said.

Enclosed inside a small silver casket, the heart of Marie, a granddaughter of Britain's Queen Victoria, "will lie on a plinth placed behind the couch where she passed away on July 18, 1938 at 5:38 pm," the family, who live in Bucharest, said in a statement.

It said Marie's heart will be transferred to the Pelisor Palace from the National History Museum in a procession on November 3.

The wife of King Ferdinand I, who reigned from 1914 to 1927, had wanted her heart to be laid to rest in a specially built chapel in Balcic, a town on the Black Sea and which at the time belonged to Romania.

The royal family had a castle in Balcic which was queen's favourite summer residence.

But the region was returned to Bulgaria in 1940 and the royal family was forced to move the heart to a temporary location in Bran castle in Romania's Carpathian Mountains.

The chapel at Bran however "was desecrated during the communist regime" and the heart was moved again to the National History Museum, the family said.

They then requested it be taken to a place with some royal connection, and Pelisor "is the place where the heart beat for the last time."

Born in England in 1875 as Princess Marie of Edinburgh, her father was Prince Alfred, a son of Queen Victoria.

Her grandson, King Michael I, was forced to abdicate by Romania's communist regime in 1947.