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With its 30 rooms nestling in 40 hectares (98 acres) of secluded grounds in Windsor Great Park, Royal Lodge has been the home of Prince Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson for two decades and been likened to a very grand country house.
Now it too is in the crosshairs of public outrage as pressure mounts to justify the discredited prince’s right to live in such grandeur in a crown estate property on “a peppercorn” rent.
The Grade II-listed Georgian mansion is laid out across three storeys with two-storey wings, and features a “formal room” and a spacious drawing room with intricate mouldings and millwork, high ceilings and large, arched windows opening out on to the rear terrace.
There is a conservatory and a saloon, reportedly measuring about 15 metres by 9 metres (48ft by 30ft), and seven bedrooms. In fact, the residence is so large that both Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie were able to host their wedding receptions at home.
One person, who has seen inside, has described its style as classic elegance with antique furniture and rugs, walls hung with art from the royal collection and fresh flowers in all the main rooms. Visitors can expect to be greeted by a butler on arrival, and there is a cook and housekeeper, according to reports.
There are rare glimpses of its interior in the background of Ferguson’s YouTube show Storytime with Fergie and Friends, showing windowsills lined with trinkets, vintage style vases and potted plants.
Its extensive grounds include a chapel lodge, six cottages as well as a gardener’s cottage and police security accommodation. Beatrice and Eugenie grew up there, and the garden boasts their initialled, personalised wooden swings. There is room for a swimming pool, a driving range for the golf-obsessed prince and tennis courts, according to reports.
There is also a mini-sized thatched cottage in its grounds, Y Bwthyn Bach (The Little Cottage), which was originally given to the then Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret by the people of Wales.
But for all its grandeur, the signs are that Royal Lodge is in need of repair. Recent photographs of the exterior stucco show evidence of peeling and black mould. The Sun reported last year it required an estimated £2m in repairs, with Andrew reportedly paying £200,000 for roof repairs.
Andrew is said to have promised the king he will undertake the repairs, though how he will finance this is not known. Charles reportedly cut Andrew off financially last year when he removed his £1m annual allowance, leaving his only declared income as a £20,000 naval pension. Questions remain about how he funds his estimated £3m-a-year security bill.
Andrew took over Royal Lodge after the 2002 death of his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, a previous Duchess of York.
When she died, aged 101, there was speculation Prince Edward, now Duke of Edinburgh, who lives at Bagshot Park, 11 miles south of Windsor, had his eye on it, according to historian Andrew Lownie’s new book, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York.
Instead, Andrew became the new tenant, despite already having Sunninghill, the modern mansion gifted to him on his wedding by his mother and dubbed “South York” by the tabloids after the US soap Dallas.
Royal Lodge is owned by the crown estate, the independent body which runs crown properties on behalf of the nation and whose revenues go to the Treasury.
According to documents, no other bidders for the 75-year lease were sought. A 2005 National Audit Office report stated: “The crown estate could have offered up the lease option to the wider market but did not because of the sensitive location and security concerns.”
This is a familiar reason given by palace officials when explaining the use of various properties in or near security cordons protecting senior royals.
Andrew paid £1m and agreed a peppercorn rent in return for restoring the lodge, on which he has spent a reported £7.5m, requiring him to take out a mortgage against Sunninghill according to Lownie, who wrote: “With the property valued at around £20m, the estimated market rent would be £260,000 a year.” Under the terms of the lease, he and his family are entitled to live in the property until 2078.
Sunninghill Park was sold by Prince Andrew in 2007 to Timur Kulibayev, the son-in-law of the president of Kazakhstan, for £15m.
Since moving into Royal Lodge, Andrew has had to pay just one peppercorn of rent “if demanded” per year. This has raised concerns that the public could be being deprived of potential funds from the property.
The building was in need of work, having been largely left as it was during the queen mother’s time, and the exterior was painted white instead of pink before Andrew finally moved in in March 2005, with Ferguson following later.
There has been a house on the Royal Lodge site since the 17th century. Initially constructed as a modest farmhouse in 1662, by the mid-18th century it was the home of military topographer and artist Thomas Sandby, the deputy ranger of Windsor Great Park, and later to Joseph Frost, the park bailiff.
Its first links to royalty were established by George, Prince of Wales, later George IV, who used it has a hunting lodge from 1812. King William IV had it almost completely demolished and rebuilt in 1830, sparing only the conservatory. By 1840 it was used as grace-and-favour accommodation for senior members of the royal household.
In 1931, the future George VI and Queen Elizabeth – later the queen mother – lived there as the Duke and Duchess of York, retaining the house as a country retreat after the 1936 abdication crisis, with Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret spending much time there in childhood.
After George VI’s death in 1952, the queen mother spent most weekends there and continued to use it until her death on 30 March 2002.
In echoes of a previous royal scandal, on 11 December 1936, the Duke of Windsor took leave of his family at Royal Lodge after his abdication speech before leaving for overseas and exile.
