King’s plan to make Balmoral a museum to honour the Queen
All change as William inherits vast Duchy portfolio and Charles gets Queen’s palaces
KING Charles has plans to turn Balmoral into a museum in honour of his mother.
The private castle which was so beloved by the Queen would be ‘opened up to the public’ and is likely to carry an exhibition paying tribute to her extraordinary seven-decade reign, an insider said.
‘Looking at the number of properties and the number of working members of the
Royal family, the King will be looking at the properties and asking: “What value does this give to the public?,’” a source said.
An exhibition is likely to focus on the Queen’s lifetime of service and offer an opportunity to display some of the Royal jewellery collection and the outfits worn by the Queen at pivotal moments in history.
It would also honour her connection to Scotland while making good use of the grounds and maintaining staff numbers at the estate.
Charles is unlikely to require large living quarters in the Castle as he already has his own retreat at nearby Birkhall.
It would also fulfil the King’s ambition of creating spaces within existing Royal buildings where people can come together. During his time as Britain’s longest-serving Prince of Wales, the King devoted time to restoring the Castle of Mey, the Caithness home of his late grandmother, the Queen Mother. A source said: ‘Now he plans to do something similar with Balmoral. But all these things are likely to take some time.’
An exhibition at Balmoral, where the Queen loved to spend her summer holidays, could be opened up to the public next summer. It would draw tens of thousands of visitors to pay a tribute to the Queen in the Highlands home where she spent her final days.
The Queen’s coffin later lay in the ballroom at Balmoral Castle where staff and friends of the late monarch were able to pay their respects.
Six gamekeepers were chosen as pallbearers to transport the coffin last Sunday to a hearse waiting outside for a six-hour journey, accompanied by the Princess Royal, to Edinburgh where it rested overnight in the Palace of Holyroodhouse before a service in the capital at St Giles’ Cathedral.
The new plans for Balmoral are all part of the new King’s determination to cut back on the excess of Royalty and to foster a slimmed-down monarchy.
One of his plans is to radically reduce the number of official suites at Buckingham Palace. As one source put it, the King is most likely to adopt a ‘flat above the shop’ living arrangement instead.
KING CHARLES will never be short of a place to live, with at least nine prominent palaces to lay his weary head.
But in a property merry-go-round dubbed ‘Game of Homes’, the Monarch has also handed over the 130,000-acre Duchy of Cornwall to his eldest son. It means William is technically his father’s landlord as long as the King continues to live in his beloved Highgrove estate in Gloucestershire.
The inheritance has made the new Prince of Wales the biggest private landowner in Britain, with a £1.2billion holding across 23 counties, including farms, housing developments, seven castles, woodland, coastlines and commercial property.
For his part, Charles has inherited a sizeable portfolio, either directly from the Queen – including Balmoral and Sandringham – or as part of the Crown Estate, such as Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle.
These join those he already owned including Birkhall on the Balmoral estate, inherited from the Queen Mother; Dumfries House in Ayrshire and in Caithness the Castle of Mey, the landmarks held by his charitable trust; and two Romanian boltholes.
Here we outline some of the more unusual properties Prince William has taken on as part of the Duchy, while the panel below features some of the King’s holdings.
PUFFIN ISLANDS
THE Duchy owns most of the 200plus Scilly Islands and rocks off the Cornish coast, including almost a third of the homes on the five inhabited isles of St Mary’s, Tresco, St Martin’s, St Agnes and Bryher. Tourism accounts for more than 85 per cent of the local economy with visitors attracted by the seals, dolphins, puffins and rare flowers. The Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust pays the Duchy a rent of a single daffodil a year.
CATEGORY C PRISON
AMONG the Duchy’s 70,000 acres in Devon is the freehold of Dartmoor prison, whose inmates down the years have included London gangsters Frank ‘The Mad Axeman’ Mitchell and Jack ‘the Hat’ McVitie. It currently holds 640 prisoners.
‘TOYTOWN’
CHARLES’S proud creation of Poundbury, a town in Dorset, reflects his traditional approach to architecture and urban planning. In line with his green principles, its homes are heated by biomethane gas. Critics have mocked it as a vanity project and nicknamed it ‘Toytown’ or ‘feudal Disneyland’, but others have praised its simple, attractive aesthetics.
OVAL CRICKET GROUND
ORIGINALLY a cabbage patch and market garden, the London ground was the first in England to host international Test cricket, in September 1880, and the final Test match of the English season is still traditionally played there.
LEGENDARY CASTLES
DATING from the 5th Century, Tintagel Castle sits on a jagged Cornish headland and is reputedly the birthplace of King Arthur. The Duchy also owns Launceston
and Restormel castles, plus 270 ancient monuments, including 12th Century Lydford Castle in Devon, Maiden Castle in Dorset, and the ruins of Berkhamsted Castle, Hertfordshire.
A WAITROSE SHOP
THE Duchy owns Tregurra Park in Truro, Cornwall, which includes a Waitrose store, a household waste recycling centre and a 1,379-space car park.
SURF HEAVEN
PLANS are under way for 4,000 new homes on 540 acres of mainly Duchy-owned land near the Cornish resort of Newquay which is beloved of surfers.
GARDEN CENTRE
A PLANT nursery at Lostwithiel, Cornwall – described as ‘a place of sanctuary’ – was designed by Queen Consort Camilla’s sister, Annabel Elliot.
MILLIONS OF TREES
THE Duchy owns 4,300 acres of managed woodland, including 2,200 acres in Cornwall alone. Timber is use to make lintels, window frames and beams for regenerated properties. Woodchip is collected to smoke locally produced food. And Greenscombe Wood in the Tamar Valley is one of only four places in the UK where the rare Heath Fritillary butterfly is found.
The Duchy’s woodland are widely dominated by conifers such as Douglas fir, larch and red cedar.
It also owns 11,370 acres of farmland and woods on The Guy’s Estate in the Herefordshire countryside near Ross-on-Wye.
HOLIDAY COTTAGES
INCLUDED in the portfolio are 28 ‘attractive period properties’ in Cornwall, Wales and the Isles of Scilly, designed environmentally with light fittings made from bottles and coffee tables fashioned from old wooden chests.
RIVERS AND COASTLINE
THE Duchy owns the Salcombe Kingsbridge estuary in Devon, as well as those for the rivers Dart, Avon (in Devon), Tamar, Looe, Helford and Camel. It also owns coastal foreshore around Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. Waters are used for fishing as well as mussel, clam and cockle farming.
HIGHGROVE
WILLIAM’S takeover of the Duchy raises the possibility that he could charge his father rent on the 18th Century house near Tetbury. The restoration of its gardens has been a passion project for Charles, who keeps bees there, and sells jars of their honey
for £25 a time.
WELSH FARMHOUSE
IT’S believed the Duchy owns Charles’s Welsh home at Llwynywermod near the Brecon Beacons. Charles and Camilla often retreat to the farmhouse on a 192-acre estate that contains two holiday cottages.