Queen’s Sandringham stay in honour of cherished Philip

EACH year around Halloween, the Queen and Prince Philip would escape to their Sandringham Estate in Norfolk.

For a week the couple would cosy-up at Wood Farm to enjoy some quality time together.

Although her ‘dear late husband’ – as she referred to him this week – died in April, the 95year-old monarch has decided to honour those cherished memories together.

And yesterday she flew by helicopter from Windsor Castle, where she has been resting after her hospitalisation last month, for a few days’ recuperation in the place they held so dear. Indeed, some were speculating last night that it could be just the tonic she needs, though Buckingham Palace declined to comment.

Wood Farm was where Philip, who passed away at 99, largely spent the last few years of his life following his retirement. A countryman at heart, he loved Sandringham and relished the relative simplicity of Wood Farm, where his only concession to modernisation had been to put in a new kitchen.

If not for the pandemic, which saw him move to Windsor to be with the Queen, it is likely to have been where he would have spent his last days.

The Duchess of Cornwall, meanwhile, turned producer yesterday as she visited the set of ITV’s crime drama Grace – and only half-jokingly asked for a future cameo role.

Camilla met the crew and cast in a chilly Soreham-by-Sea, West Sussex, chatting to John Simm, who plays the troubled Brighton policeman, as well as the writer of the best-selling Roy Grace series, Peter James.

Camilla said she was a ‘huge fan’ of the author’s work.