Queen to spend less time at Buckingham Palace in future
BUCKINGHAM PALACE is likely to become the Queen’s “third home” after plans are put in place for her to spend more time at Windsor Castle and Balmoral as she enters her nineties.
Her Majesty already spends longer at Windsor, about an hour’s drive west of Buckingham Palace, than she does at her London residence, and will gradually lengthen the amount of time she spends in Scotland every summer to conserve her energy for the hundreds of duties she undertakes each year. Royal household staff have begun to rearrange her diary so that her engagements are squeezed into fewer days.
The Queen, who celebrates her 90th birthday in April, still works every day apart from Christmas Day, going through her red boxes of official government papers and holding meetings.
One source said: “It’s a question of managing her energy to give her sufficient downtime, whether that be more time at Balmoral or making sure that
her weekend starts earlier on a Thursday so her time at Windsor is longer. It’s not about her doing less, it’s about what she does being done differently.”
An analysis of the Queen’s diary shows that a dramatic reduction has already taken place in the amount of time she spends at Buckingham Palace – in 2015, the Queen stayed 88 nights in London, down from 109 in 2011.
Over the same period, her time spent at Windsor Castle has risen to 159 nights from 119, while stays at Sandringham, her Norfolk retreat, have edged up to 54 nights from 51. In some years she has stayed at Balmoral for 63 nights, putting the Scottish castle in line to overtake Buckingham Palace.
The Queen spends each summer at Balmoral and takes an extended Christmas break at Sandringham. She holds her annual Easter Court at Windsor and also stays there at weekends, leaving London on a Thursday afternoon and returning on Monday.
Therefore, in an average week, Her Majesty is at Windsor for four nights and at Buckingham Palace for only three. Balmoral is the Queen’s favourite home, where she unwinds by going for walks and enjoying picnics. As well as her annual August and September visits to the main house, she and the Duke of Edinburgh spend a week at the beginning of their stay at Craigowan Lodge, a seven-bedroom stone house a mile from the castle and which is normally used for guests. The lodge and Wood Farm, a cottage on the Sandringham Estate where the Queen and the Duke spend a week each year, offer the couple the sort of privacy and seclusion which they cannot find in the royal palaces.
Buckingham Palace has been described as a government building, an official residence which is far from cosy and where duties always come first.
It is there that the Queen conducts most of her official State engagements, including visits from foreign heads of state, investitures, meetings with the Prime Minister and with incoming and outgoing ambassadors.
A royal source said: “There are a lot of events planned to celebrate the Queen’s 90th birthday in 2016 so it will be a big year. After that we will see a slight gear change to make things more manageable, with a bigger role for other members of the Royal family.”