With its secluded yet central location, elegant grounds and distinguished history, it is, you might think, the perfect Royal Family home.
Add to that a Peter Rabbit-themed nursery and a £4.5 million recent refurbishment (courtesy of the taxpayer) and Kensington Palace would appear to be the ideal place for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to bring up baby George.
Despite all this – and the official protestations that Kensington does indeed remain their long-term family home – the Cambridges have decided that they would rather be in Norfolk.
With a secluded location, elegant grounds and a £4.5m refit, Kensington Palace would appear to be the ideal place for the Duke and Duchess to bring up baby George, but the couple have decided to move to Norfolk
With William starting his job with the East Anglian Air Ambulance service later this year, they have decided to base themselves at Anmer Hall, their new Norfolk home. An announcement about the new post is expected imminently.
Royal aides are insisting that ‘KP’, where Kate and William have lived since moving there from Anglesey in September 2013, will remain the couple’s ‘full-time family home and long-term residence’.
William and Kate intend to spend the next two years in Norfolk.
They added: ‘William and Catherine are not pavement people; they prefer the countryside. They really miss Anglesey.
They can’t wait to move into Anmer Hall. All of George’s things will be there – it’s very much going to be their family home.
‘William has told me that while Kensington Palace is their long-term home, and I think the plan is that it will always be so, they both love the countryside.
Kensington Palace, London, is only a short drive from Kate's family home in Berkshire. Kate and Wills may have only an 'apartment' in the Palace - but with 20 rooms over four storeys, it's hardly modest
‘They enjoy the quiet life they can have there, and feel somewhat imprisoned in the Palace. Anmer is going to be perfect for a couple of years – that is the plan,’ she explained.
The Cambridges have already attracted controversy over the cost of Kensington Palace, not least when the Duchess replaced the existing kitchen of their London residence – Apartment 1A at the Palace – at a cost of £170,000, before opting to build a second one.
Despite a private drive, courtyard and spacious walled garden, the Palace overlooks Kensington Park Gardens – a public space – and William and Kate often find themselves being photographed going about their daily lives.
Anmer Hall, Norfolk, where the couple will bring up baby George. It has its own tennis court and £38,000 kitchen put in six years ago has been ripped out by the Cambridges during a £1.5million refurbishment
The Duchess no longer walks Prince George through Kensington after she was snapped in the Royal park last year.
She is routinely caught on camera when she pops into local stores on Kensington High Street and both she and William have told friends that they miss the freedom they enjoyed when they lived in Wales.
Anmer Hall, situated on the Queen’s Sandringham Estate, is in the last stages of a two-year, £1.5 million refurbishment, which has been paid for privately, and the couple intend to spend most of August there to oversee the final details.
They are expected to stay at Wood Farm, a cottage on the Royal estate, while works are completed.
Norfolk has always been a special part of the world to William, and Anmer Hall, a 200-year-old, Grade II listed property, was a 30th birthday present to him from the Queen.
The ten-bedroom mansion has a swimming pool and tennis court and its refurbishment includes a new kitchen and garden room, rerouting the driveway to the property to make it more private, converting a garage block into accommodation for their team of protection officers and converting an outhouse into a space for George’s nanny.
The Duke and Duchess’s decision to base themselves in East Anglia is apparently supported by Prince Charles.
A source confirmed: ‘Charles is very much behind it. He wants William to have as ordinary a family life as he can before he becomes a full-time Royal.’
William has taken a ‘transitional’ year out since quitting the RAF last September. He has said he misses flying and is expected to work a shift pattern with the Air Ambulance – four days on and three off – which means he will have plenty of time to spend with his new family.
William Van Cutsem with wife Rosie. William and Harry spent much of their childhood at Anmer Hall when it was the residence of the Van Cutsem family, who are long-established friends of the Royals
It is anticipated that Prince George will go to nursery and primary school in London, when the time comes.
William and Kate know North Norfolk well and have a wide circle of well-connected friends – dubbed the ‘Turnip Toffs’ – in East Anglia.
They have been seen shopping at local stores such as the Mews Antiques Emporium and Shirehall Plain Antiques in nearby Holt.
William is fond of the Dabbling Duck Pub in Great Massingham and the bakery in Great Bircham, both a short drive from the Hall. And recently the Cambridges were made honorary members at the prestigious Royal West Norfolk Golf Club.
William and Harry spent much of their childhood at Anmer Hall when it was the residence of the Van Cutsem family, who are long-established friends of the Royals. William’s cousin Laura Fellowes – daughter of Lord Robert Fellowes and Lady Jane, Princess Diana’s sister – also lives in Norfolk.
William's cousin Laura Fellowes, left, daughter of Lord Robert Fellowes and Lady Jane - Princess Diana's sister - also lives in Norfolk, as does Davina Duckworth Chad, right, who is an old friend of William
A guest at the Royal Wedding, she is an Edinburgh University graduate and known as ‘Mavis’ to her family and friends. There are other friends close by. The Duckworth-Chad family, who live at Pynkney Hall near King’s Lynn, have enjoyed a long friendship with Prince Charles.
Landowner Anthony Duckworth-Chad’s daughter Davina is an old friend of William and has six-year-old twins – India Honor and Siena Beatrice. The couple can also count Baron Howard of Rising and his family as friends in the area.
William and Harry play in an annual football match close to the famous castle ruins of Castle Rising and are regular guests at the grand stately pile. Baron Howard’s children Annabel, Charlie and Tom, are close in age to William and Kate.
Further along the coast at Holkham, where William and Harry played on the beach as children, is Viscount Thomas Coke and his family, who run Holkham Hall.
沒有留言:
張貼留言