Pregnant Pippa buys a £15m country pile — close to her parents
THE Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are not the only ones moving to the Royal County of Berkshire. I can disclose that Catherine’s sister, Pippa, and her investment banker husband, James Matthews, have spent around £15 million on one of the most beautiful stately homes in the county.
And they will need the extra space, as I’m told she’s heavily pregnant with their third child.
‘Pippa and her family are thrilled,’ a friend confirms.
‘It’s a very exciting time in their lives. They are looking forward to living closer to her parents.’
Their new home is about a 20-minute drive from Michael and Carole Middleton’s home in Bucklebury. Pippa’s brother, James, bought a farmhouse in the county for £1.45 million with his French wife, Alizee, last year.
Meanwhile, Prince William and Catherine are understood to be considering a number of properties for their family on the Queen’s Windsor estate.
The Cambridges’ three children are all due to start at the same private school in the county in September.
The Georgian mansion that Pippa, 38, and her Eton- educated husband, 46,
(pictured) have bought was the subject of a painstaking multi- million- pound restoration by its previous owner.
It was not known that it was on the market and the sale is said to have been carried out privately.
It has around 30 rooms, plus plenty of outdoor space for children to play with their royal cousins in around 150 acres of grounds that lead down to a river.
Pippa, who once wrote a book filled with tips on entertaining, will be able to grow produce in the huge walled garden and greenhouses.
‘It’s a far more impressive property than any of those on the Windsor estate, apart from the castle,’ a local tells me.
This week, a removals lorry was seen parked outside the couple’s home in Chelsea, West London, which Matthews, a former professional racing driver, bought for £17 million in 2015.
It’s not clear if they are keeping their home in the capital.
Edinburgh University graduate Pippa married James, whose brother is reality television star Spencer Matthews, in 2017 and they have a son aged three and a 16-monthold daughter. James’s father, David Matthews, is Laird of Glen Affric, a 10,000 acre estate in Scotland.
His parents also own the Eden Rock resort on the island of St Barts in
the Caribbean.