I’m enjoying the Fort Belvedere storyline this summer. Two weekends ago, the Mail on Sunday revealed that Prince William and Kate have a renewed interest in moving into Fort Belvedere, which is part of the Windsor Estate. Everyone acknowledges that the Weston family seemingly has a valid lease (even though Hilary Weston recently passed away), so if a move happens, it’s likely that the Westons will have to be persuaded to give up their lease. The way “royal sources” talk about the Fort, it feels less and less likely that the Wales family really was based out of the relatively small Adelaide Cottage this whole time. Anyway, we’ve been covering all of the Fort Drama this week, and it continues to be hilarious. Very few people acknowledge that William now has the money to simply… buy a country estate privately. It’s like William and Kate are stomping their feet and demanding a free home, even though they have the means to make plenty of other arrangements. Well, at least Hello’s Emily Nash is acknowledging that.
While HELLO!’s Royal Editor Emily Nash is sceptical about a Fort Belvedere move, as she writes in her The Royal Club newsletter this week, it wouldn’t be a total surprise if the future King and Queen were considering future property plans.
“I’m told they’ve been very happy there,” Emily writes of the family’s current four-bedroomed home, Adelaide Cottage. “Enjoying precious time together as a family of five, with no live-in staff and with easy access to Lambrook, the Berkshire school attended by Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis.”
However, Emily adds that that doesn’t mean they will stay forever, and there are a number of options available to the Prince and Princess of Wales. One thing the royal duo may be considering is purchasing a property privately, rather than moving into another Crown Estate property such as Fort Belvedere.
“As Prince of Wales, William now controls the Duchy of Cornwall, which provided him with an income of £23 million in the year to April, more than enough to buy a place of his own, just as his father did with Highgrove in 1980,” writes Emily in her royal club dispatch. So he wouldn’t be the first royal to do this.
“There’s precedent”, Emily continues. “The late Queen made private home purchases for her children — gifting Princess Anne Gatcombe Park, where she still lives, and Prince Andrew Sunninghill Park, before he moved to Royal Lodge. Prince Edward was handed Bagshot Park, a former royal residence.”
So it could well be that William and Catherine are not only considering where they should live as a family of five, but perhaps, like the late Queen, thinking of their children’s futures. “They may even be thinking further ahead, laying the groundwork for a future home not only for themselves, but maybe one day for Charlotte, or Louis,” Emily adds.
“As future King, George will have more options. Of course, the same applies to William when he becomes King. He will have access to a number of major royal residences. But most of them are at least partly open to the public, with plans to open some of them up further. Some, such as Balmoral and Sandringham House may eventually become museums, rather than homes. So I can see why William and Catherine might instead gravitate more towards a private property they can fully make their own,” she concludes.
The thing about Adelaide is that the whole move was organized when QEII was still alive and Will and Kate were just the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. It was seen as suitable enough for the heir’s heir and his wife’s sudden desire to be based in Windsor. It’s crazy that they’ve “stayed” in Adelaide for three years after becoming the Prince and Princess of Wales – there is no precedent for the future king to claim that he lives in a tiny four-bedroom cottage with no live-in staff. And true to form, Will and Kate are still behaving as kids who need permission for their schemes. They’ve had a bug up their ass about Fort Belvedere for years, because they’re jealous that other people (including Harry and Meghan) have such grander homes. Anyway, Nash’s solution is so obvious: if they want a grander home, they should buy one and that way they can pass it down to one of their kids eventually. It would never occur to Will and Kate to operate in that way though.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
