Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
£3.75 M FOR CHARLES & CAMILLA LOVENEST
Country mansion where Prince visited his lover before Diana marriage
THE country home where Prince Charles courted Princess Diana and visited his lover Camilla Parker Bowles is for sale for £3.75million.
Bolehyde Manor was home to the now Duchess of Cornwall when she was married to her first husband Andrew Parker Bowles.
Prince Charles was a frequent visitor during, and even before, the breakdown of his marriage to Lady Diana Spencer.
But it was also a favoured destination when he was initially wooing Diana some years earlier.
The sprawling, eight-bed property is now being sold by owners the Earl and Countess of Cairns, who paid £600,000 for it in 1986.
Camilla lived in the sprawling home from 1973 until 1986.
And Bolehyde has another royal connection – the Duchess of Cambridge’s parents considered buying it in 2011. Carole and Michael Middleton viewed the 14th Century manor house shortly before daughter Kate married the Duke of Cambridge.
The estate features “captivating” gardens, set over 70 acres, with a swimming pool and a tennis court, extensive outbuildings and land for farming.
It is located near Chippenham in Wiltshire – just 15 miles from Prince Charles’ estate at Highgrove in Tetbury, Glos.
Historical records show evidence of work on the site as far back as 700 years ago. It is being sold by estate agents
Savills for £1million less than it was marketed for when the Middletons viewed it. According to the Savills listing, it has “the history of the ages knitted into its very fabric”.
Inside it has dark oak panelling and an ornate carved staircase which “acts as a central focus in the reception hall”.
The “carefully restored and wonderfully maintained” gardens feature “immaculate topiary hedging and attractive stone walling defining individual pockets of character, like rooms of varying moods”. Property agent Lindsay Cuthill said: “Bolehyde Manor is an enchanting house with stunning gardens.”
The building was given Grade II listing
ON PROPERTY LISTING
in 1952, with Camilla and husband Andrew moving in two decades later. Prince Charles and Camilla had been in a relationship before he met Diana.
But he was called away to train with the Navy so Camilla settled down with her on-off boyfriend Parker Bowles.
It has been widely acknowledged they resumed their romance before he tied the knot with the soon-to-be Princess of Wales. He spent time with Camilla at Bolehyde in the late 1970s while her husband was away in London.
Prince Charles and Princess Diana formally divorced in 1996 and she was tragically killed in a Paris car crash just a year later.
He and his former lover then married in 2005. Camilla had divorced from Andrew in 1995 having spent several years apart before it was finalised.