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Cost of the crown team Thu 20 Apr 2023
Royal residences: how many, how big and who lives where?
The Guardian details 18 key castles, estates and ‘cottages’ used by King Charles and other royal family members
Wed 3 May 2023 by Felicity Lawrence, Rob Evans, Severin Carrell and David Pegg
Along with the crown, Charles III has inherited an unrivalled collection of homes to add to several he accumulated as heir-in-waiting. The king and the queen consort now have more than a dozen residences to choose from, boasting a total of at least 2,000 rooms. The cost of the staff required to keep these properties available year-round for often brief visits – and precisely who pays for them – is unclear. Here we list the main properties used by the king and close family members.
Buckingham Palace
Location: central London
Ownership: king, in right of the crown
Size: 775 rooms, including 52 bedrooms and 78 bathrooms
Use: official headquarters of the monarch
Open to the public? Yes, public rooms open in summer, £30; limited tours on other days, £90.
Reputed to be disliked by many of the royal family, Buckingham Palace nonetheless remains central to the British monarchy. With its vast array of rooms and acres of gardens, the palace is the official headquarters of the king, although it has not yet been announced whether it will also become his main London residence, as it was for Queen Elizabeth II. The cost of its upkeep has been a perennial sore. In 2017, it was agreed that action was needed to fix the leaking roof and crumbling masonry, with the then prime minister, Theresa May, increasing the government-funded sovereign grant to cover £369m of refurbishment costs over 10 years.
St James’s Palace
Location: central London
Ownership: king, in right of the crown
Size: state rooms around a series of courtyards and a Tudor gatehouse
Use: an administrative centre for the sovereign and the royal court; houses apartments used by Princess Anne and Princess Alexandra, the late queen’s cousin.
Open to the public? No
Close to Buckingham Palace is the sprawling complex of St James’s Palace, where the royal court is formally based. Charles lived in a wing of the palace with his sons William and Harry after his separation from Diana, but moved to the more private Clarence House after the queen mother died. St James’s is still the site for major royal ceremonial events. Charles was declared king in the Proclamation Gallery, and royal christenings take place in its Chapel Royal.
Clarence House
Location: central London
Ownership: king, in right of the crown
Size: five bedrooms, a morning room, drawing room and garden room
Use: London residence of the king and queen consort
Open to the public? Currently closed
Clarence House’s first occupant was its patron William, Duke of Clarence (later King William IV). Other residents have included Princess Elizabeth, who lived in the property before her accession in 1952, and her mother, Queen Elizabeth, who lived there until her death in 2002. More recently it has been the London home of Charles and Camilla.
Windsor Castle
Location: Berkshire, England
Ownership: king, in right of the crown
Size: More than 1,000 rooms in 2,000 hectares of parkland
Use: the monarch’s weekend residence
Open to the public? Yes, public areas, £28
With more than 1,000 rooms, this is the largest occupied castle in the world. It was Queen Elizabeth II’s preferred home near London. Several royal weddings and funerals have been held in the castle’s chapel. In 1992, a fire destroyed large parts of the building. A row ensued over who should pay for the repairs, with many arguing that the queen should fund them from her private wealth. In the end, the £37m restoration was paid for from existing grants and from money raised by opening Buckingham Palace to paying visitors for the first time.
Adelaide Cottage
Location: Windsor Home Park, Berkshire
Ownership: crown estate, given over to the king
Size: reportedly four bedrooms
Use: official residence of William and Catherine, Prince and Princess of Wales
Open to the public? No
William and Catherine moved in with their family in 2022 as paying tenants. Their children go to a private school nearby. Described as modest and quaint, the Grade II-listed cottage was built in the 18th century using materials recycled from the Royal Lodge and a former royal yacht. Queen Victoria is said to have taken breakfast and tea there regularly. Its ownership is convoluted: originally part of the crown estate, it was given over to Windsor Castle for the use of the sovereign in perpetuity.
Royal Lodge
Location: Windsor Great Park, Berkshire
Ownership: crown estate, with a 75-year lease bought by Prince Andrew in 2003
Size: reportedly 30 rooms in 40 hectares
Use: Andrew and his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson
Open to the public? No
Since he was removed from royal duties in 2019 over sexual abuse claims, Prince Andrew, 63, is said to have been spending his days rattling around his 30-room mansion where he has lived since 2003. His former wife, Sarah Ferguson, reportedly lives in a separate wing. It has been reported that Charles wants to cut the financial support Andrew gets from his family, which could leave him struggling to afford the lodge’s running costs. The king has offered his younger brother the smaller Frogmore Cottage, according to reports.
Frogmore Cottage
Location: Windsor Home Park, Berkshire
Ownership: crown estate, given over to the king
Size: reportedly four bedrooms and four bathrooms
Use: Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, until 2020; currently empty
Open to the public? No
The Grade II-listed house was made available to Harry and Meghan by the late queen shortly before the birth of their first child, Archie. Before then it had housed estate workers.Its ownership is – like that of Adelaide Cottage – difficult to untangle: originally owned by the crown estate, a change in the 19th century means it can be used in perpetuity by the sovereign. Harry and Meghan renovated it using £2.4m from the taxpayer-funded sovereign grant. This work reportedly created a four-bedroom, four-bathroom home with orangeries, a nursery and a yoga studio. Meghan and Harry remained paying tenants after they moved to California. They repaid the £2.4m in 2020 in lieu of further rent.
Kensington Palace
Location: central London
Ownership: king, in right of the crown
Size: vast palace divided into several apartments, plus cottages in grounds
Use: London residence of William and Catherine, and other royals
Open to the public? Yes, £25.40
Once known as “the aunt heap” on account of the number of ageing minor royals living there, Kensington Palace today is the London residence of the Prince and Princess of Wales, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, the Duke and Duchess of Kent, and Prince and Princess Michael of Kent. The elegant three-storey, redbrick mansion, largely designed by the architect Christopher Wren, was the favoured residence of earlier monarchs, who entertained lavishly in its grand state rooms and galleries.
Highgrove House
Location: Gloucestershire
Ownership: Duchy of Cornwall
Size: nine bedrooms with a 140-hectare farm estate
Use: Charles and Camilla use it as their country home
Open to the public? Yes, Highgrove gardens, £30
The Duchy of Cornwall bought Highgrove House as a country home for Charles in 1980. It was just a few miles from Camilla’s family home at the time and it cost £865,000. The king renovated it and created formal and kitchen gardens. He has also installed solar panels and a reed-bed sewage filtering system. It is currently valued by an estates expert at about £15m. The king initially lived in the property for free; these days he pays £659,285 in annual rent for the house and other properties used by his staff. On Charles’s accession to the throne, Prince William inherited the Duchy of Cornwall and so became his father’s Highgrove landlord.
Sandringham estate
Location: Norfolk
Ownership: privately owned by the king
Size: more than 8,000 hectares and 300 commercially rented properties
Use: members of the royal family for Christmas holidays and private breaks
Open to the public? Yes, during the summer, £23
A large house and larger estate that includes farms and more than 300 houses across 13 villages that are rented out by the king. As a whole it is estimated to be worth between £250m and £390m. The estate includes Anmer Hall, a 10-bedroom manor given to William and Catherine by the late queen.
Balmoral Castle and estate
Location: Aberdeenshire
Ownership: privately owned by the king through a trust
Size: the castle has 167 rooms; the estate is 22,000 hectares
Use: the monarch’s summer base
Open to the public? Yes, public areas, £17.74
Conservatively worth £78m, Balmoral is the quintessential Highland estate, where the royal family indulge their love of deer stalking, grouse shooting and salmon fishing. The late queen, who died there last September, is said to have regarded Balmoral as her favourite place.
The estate includes the king’s personal retreat at Birkhall, a country house dating to 1715 and enlarged by the queen mother in the 1960s; and Craigowan Lodge, a seven-bedroom house. There are another 81 cottages and lodges on the estate, mostly for staff.
Castle of Mey
Location: Caithness
Ownership: Prince’s Foundation charitable trust
Size: tower house in 12 hectares of parkland
Use: Charles and Camilla as a holiday home
Open to the public? Yes, £14.50
The castle was owned by the queen mother, who bought it as a semi-derelict ruin in 1952. After an extensive reconstruction, she stayed there every August through to October, until her death in 2002. In 1996 its ownership passed to a charitable trust under the direction of Charles. He opened up its gardens and public rooms to visitors, and in 2019 he gave it to the Prince’s Foundation.
Dumfries House
Location: East Ayrshire
Ownership: Prince’s Foundation
Size: mansion in 800 hectares
Use: king, during visits to the area
Open to the public? Yes, £13.50
Dumfries House and its Chippendale furniture was bought for £45m by a consortium headed by Prince Charles in 2007 from the Marquis of Bute. The purchase was funded through government, lottery and charitable funds, and a £20m loan from Charles’s Prince of Wales Charitable Foundation. Charles hoped to repay that loan by building a model village nearby, a project that floundered after the banking crisis in 2008. His aides then controversially raised money from foreign private donors to fund the debt.
Bagshot Park
Ownership: crown estate lease bought privately
Size: reportedly 120 rooms within 21 hectares
Use: Edward and Sophie, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh
Open to public? No
The king’s youngest sibling, Edward, has lived in Bagshot Park’s Mansion House with his wife since 1998. Before they moved in, the dilapidated mansion was refurbished at a cost of nearly £3m. The Ministry of Defence, which previously used the building, paid £1.8m towards the renovation, with the rest coming from Edward. Under the terms of the initial lease, Edward was required to pay £90,000 in annual rent. He sublet the stables to a commercial firm, which helped to cover this cost, and later reportedly bought a longer lease.
Gatcombe Park
Location: Gloucestershire
Ownership: privately owned by Princess Anne since 1976
Size: 18 rooms, 283-hectare estate
Use: home of Anne and her second husband, Sir Timothy Laurence
Open to public? No
Princess Anne has lived in this Cotswolds country house since 1976 when the queen bought it for her and her then husband, Capt Mark Phillips. The estate has a lake, extensive parkland, and stables. Since 2013, Anne’s daughter, Zara, has lived in a cottage on the estate with her husband, the former rugby player Mike Tindall, and their children. Anne’s son, Peter Phillips, reportedly has a separate house on the estate.
Llwynywermod
Location: Carmarthenshire
Ownership: Duchy of Cornwall
Size: three bedrooms, in 78 hectares
Use: Welsh home for the Prince of Wales
Open to the public? No
Bought by the Duchy of Cornwall for £1.3m in 2007 as the Welsh home of Charles and Camilla, it is unclear how often they stayed there. The cottages on the estate are rented out as holiday lets when the Prince of Wales is not there. Now owned by William, it is unclear whether he and Charles, who continues to pay rent, will both use it.
Palace of Holyroodhouse
Location: Edinburgh
Ownership: king, in right of the crown
Size: 289 rooms in 6 hectares of land
Use: king’s official residence in Scotland
Open to the public? Yes, £19.50
Holyroodhouse was once home to Mary, Queen of Scots, but is now the official royal residence in Scotland. In April 2019, the queen registered the crown’s ownership of the palace, its grounds and ruined abbey. Since the site had been owned by successive monarchs for centuries, that was a formality.
Hillsborough Castle
Location: Hillsborough, County Down
Ownership: UK government
Size: Two-storey mansion set in 40 hectares
Use: residence for visiting royals and the secretary of state for Northern Ireland
Open to public? Yes, £10
The British government bought Hillsborough Castle, 15 miles south-west of Belfast, in 1920 and it is the official residence of the secretary of state for Northern Ireland and members of the royal family when they visit the region. An Irish “big house” rather than a castle proper, it was built by the Hill family, Anglo-Irish landowners whose fortune was first made during the Tudor conquests of Ireland at the beginning of the 17th century. Hillsborough takes its name from the family but is seen as a politically neutral venue and has featured prominently in peace talks.