Harry and Meghan call Windsor home

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are to set up their family home in a grade II stucco-fronted property on the Windsor estate, about 35km away from Harry’s brother, the Duke of Cambridge, in Kensington.

Rather than wait for renovation work on a 20-room apartment at Kensington Palace, Harry and Meghan – who are expecting their first child in the spring – have accepted the gift of Frogmore Cottage from the Queen.

It means the couple are moving to the town in which they were married in May, described in a statement from Kensington Palace yesterday as a ‘‘very special place for their royal highnesses’’.

It also comes a month after The Times revealed that William and Harry, who long appeared to be the closest of siblings, were considering a formal division of their joint royal household, which is based at Kensington Palace. Yesterday’s statement said their official office would ‘‘continue to be based at Kensington Palace’’.

Physical distance means the royal brothers and their wives will live more separate lives. While their official residences will be about an hour’s drive apart, it is 200km from Harry and Meghan’s country retreat to William and Kate’s country home of Anmer Hall on the Sandringham estate in Norfolk.

The move, early in the new year, will represent quite a step up the property ladder from the couple’s current two-bedroom home, Nottingham Cottage, within the grounds of Kensington Palace. Harry proposed to Meghan in the kitchen, over a roast chicken dinner.

While reports that Frogmore Cottage has 10 bedrooms are exaggerated, there will be space for visitors such as Doria Ragland, Meghan’s mother. The cottage was once home to Queen Victoria’s Indian attendant, Abdul Karim, known as the Munshi, and Grand Duchess Xenia Romanov, the sister of Nicholas II, the last emperor of Russia. – The Times