Country Homes (Estates) of British Royals

[Eddie_uk]

Yes QV did stay there in 1871, she later wrote to Vicky of what she thought as the unhealthy state of the place, bad smells, bad drainage & ventilation etc!!!

[carl fraley]

quote
He seems to spend a lot of time at the Scotland estate he inherited from his grandmother.
end quote

I dont think Charles owns it  quite yet !

yeah i keep seeing the same thing everywhere that Charles inherited Birkhall from HM the Queen Mother, but Birkhall is part of the Balmoral Estate, and unless i'm wrong , the ENTire Balmoral estate is 100% the personal property of HM the Queen.   Did His Majesty THe King leave Birkhall Directly to his widow in his will and it's just not a well known fact? or are people just assuming things b/c Her Majest has let Charles take over occupancy?

[Douglas]

In 1862, the estate was purchased by Queen Victoria at the request of the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII) as a home for himself and his new bride, Alexandra. However, in 1865, two years after moving in, the hall's size proved insufficient for the prince's needs, and he commissioned A J Humbert to raze the hall and create a larger building.

The estate is also home to York Cottage, built by Edward VII soon after he moved in, and a favourite of George V. Diana, Princess of Wales was born at Park House in 1961.  Anmer Hall on the grounds is a Georgian house that was at one point the country home of the Duke of Kent.

Along with Balmoral Castle, Sandringham House is the private property of the British royal family and not part of the Crown Estate. Their succession became an issue in 1936, when Edward VIII abdicated as king. Being legacies Edward had inherited from his father, George V, the estates did not automatically pass to his younger brother George VI on abdication. George had to explicitly purchase Balmoral and Sandringham from Edward so that they could remain private retreats for the monarch's family.

quote
He seems to spend a lot of time at the Scotland estate he inherited from his grandmother.
end quote

I dont think Charles owns it  quite yet !

yeah i keep seeing the same thing everywhere that Charles inherited Birkhall from HM the Queen Mother, but Birkhall is part of the Balmoral Estate, and unless i'm wrong , the ENTire Balmoral estate is 100% the personal property of HM the Queen.   Did His Majesty THe King leave Birkhall Directly to his widow in his will and it's just not a well known fact? or are people just assuming things b/c Her Majest has let Charles take over occupancy?

[heavensent]

the story was that Charles  "met " Diana in a ploughed field...
but later we learn that Diana spent her childhood in a house on the Sandringham estates !
suddenly  the romance begins to  look  a little  ..... contrived... to say the least.

 

[Grace]

Diana did spend her childhood (up to 1975) at Park House on the Sandringham estate before her father inherited Althorp and the family moved there.  That doesn't mean she ran into Charles much though who wasn't there most of the time but she saw Andrew and Edward more frequently.  She did talk of meeting Charles in a ploughed field at Althorp - and probably mentioned it as it was the first time she had come face to face with him after she'd grown up.  

I don't really understand the relevance or the scepticism of your post?  

[CHRISinUSA]

Don't forget, Charles also dated Diana's elder sister for a while.....but it seems that Tim may feel somehow let down when he discovered that the Charles-Diana romance was not a fairy-tale romance novel.  Now, obviously I wasn't intimate friends with either Charles nor Diana, nor privy to exactly what was discussed or developed during their courtship.  But we now have enough information from many who were involved to be fairly certain about a few facts.

Charles was under intense pressure to choose a bride, and his beloved Uncle Dickie had been advising him on the choice, strongly lobbying for his own granddaughter the Hon. Amanda Knatchbull..  In Aug 1979, Uncle Dickie was assassinated and shortly after, a distraught Charles proposed to Amanda.  When she declined, Charles had to start over.  8 months later he was reacquainted with Lady Diana Spencer, who happened to fit all the Mountbatten criteria:  English, aristocratic, a virgin, Protestant, attractive and sweet-natured.  The fact that Charles had virtually nothing in common with her, nor gave not the slightest outward indication of being in love with her, did not appear to factor into the decision.  That summer and fall he shopped Diana around to the Royal Family to obtain their reaction to her as a potential consort, and received mostly positive feedback.  He proposed in Feb 1981 - just slightly more than a year after having proposed to Amanda. 

At the time it was easy to dismiss Charles' apparent indifference to Diana as just being "British reserve".  But one need only watch Charles and Camilla interact with each other today to see what Charles looks like in love.  Diana was no fairy-tale romance - she was a business transaction.  Not that I necessarily blame any party - they were all products of their respective upbringing.

[architect]

Here's the plan.  Sorry for the delay.  The title of the book is "The Victorian Country House" by Mark Girouard- printed in 1979
 

[Jamesffarley]

Wow, much different than I expected. Thanks so Much!

[Jamesffarley]

Does anyone have interior Photographs? I would love to see what the second floor looks like.

[architect]

Here are a few photos from the same book as the plans.  There are much better color photos on line if you search through Google.
 

 
Ground Floor Corridor linking the Royal Pavilion to the Main Block
 

 
Drawing Room
 

 
The Billiard Room
 

 
Queen Victoria's Sitting Room with her writing desk - This appears to be a second floor room as there is a small balcony out the glass doors.  I am also assuming this room is directly above the large Drawing Room with the circular bay window as it also has a curved exterior wall.

There appears to be another wing that was added next to the Royal Pavilion from photos I've seen.

[CHRISinUSA]

Excellent plans Architect, thank you.  I've seen floor plans somewhere of both floors that dated a bit later (after the new wing was added), I will check to see if  I can find them.

I was also surprised when I first saw these plans, as I didn't previously realize that the principal rooms of the Queen and Prince Consort (in the Royal Pavilion on the top left of the above plans) were so "small" relative to the rest of the house.  You are right Architect, the Queen's Sitting Room is on the 2nd floor (I believe above the right corner of the large drawing room).  The Queen's bedroom is above the Dining Room, and the Prince Consort's dressing room above the left corner of the large drawing room.  Other rooms (above the front of the pavilion) were the royal nursery and other family bedrooms.

Looking at the Main Block, the "top" corridor / wing was called the "Suite for the Princes and Princesses" on my plan, indicating that these were the rooms for the royal family.  The largest room was their sitting room / drawing room, and I believe the adjacent room was the royal family's dining room.  Other ground floor rooms (and rooms above) were the bedrooms for the royal family and their attendants.

The "bottom" corridor/wing was called the "Suite for the Household", suggesting these were the rooms used the household / courtiers.  This room included a council room and audience room, a household sitting room and dining room, and household bedrooms.

The Durbar Wing was added to the house in 1890-1891, attached to the Royal Pavilion via the room just to the left of the entrance hall and extending downward (similar direction as the main block).  It featured a corridor, then the Durbar Room itself (a large ballroom), and above were the apartments for Princess Beatrice and her family.

[Learning]

Is it possible for one to enlarge the floor plans on one's computer screen?

[CHRISinUSA]

I right-clicked on the plans and got the option to "Open" the picture, which then let me enlarge it.  Try that.

[Naslednik Norvezhskiy]

It's very flat and very dull! The area around Sandringham is dull,dull, Dull! I used to live down the road and loathed the landscape! It was especially miserable during the winter months! The house is hideous IMHO!!! A poor relation of St Pancras station plonked in the middle of the most uninspiring landscape imaginable!

Lol, that's harsh!
The interiors seem rather dull, yes, and although I like the Neo-Jacobean brick style and the courtyard façade, the garden façade looks too much like a row of terraced suburban houses. BTW it's a coïncidental piece of trivia that the Glücksburger Alexandra settled at Sandringham in the region of East Anglia, named for the Angles (as in Anglo-Saxon), whose ancestral home was the region of Angeln in Schleswig-Holstein, location of Glücksburg!

[JA]

16 Foot  to 1 inch Scale Floor plans For sale on EBAY UK  Item No 160425224721.  4 Plans for all Floors and Basement & Sub Basement. Dated 1940