Balmoral Estate

Classification Historic Building

DescriptionBalmoral is today best known as a Royal Residence, the summer retreat of Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh. The history as a Royal Residence dates back to 1848, when the house was rented to both the Queen and the Prince Consort by the then Duke of Fife. They very much enjoyed their stay in the house, and they paid just over £30,000 for the full ownership of the house. The Prince Consort immediately started making plans to extend the existing fifteenth century castle, and make a 'new' and bigger castle fit for a Queen.

New evidence shows that the funding for Balmoral came chiefly from an eccentric poet, prison reformer and jeweller named John Camden Nield. He left the Queen £500,000 in his will, which was a great help to the Royal Family's building ambitions.

In 1856 the building was completed, it now being a full and working estate with around 100 buildings surrounding the castle itself. The castle not including its land and estate is valued at around £160 million and remains privately owned by the British Royal Family.

Today, the Balmoral Estate is still a working order, occupying over 200 km² of land. The Royal Family employs around 50 full-time and 50-100 part-time staff to maintain the estate and look after the animals etc. The part-time staff are used particularly when the Queen makes her annual visit.

There has been some speculation that Balmoral Castle may have been earmarked as a royal refuge in the event of nuclear war. In the 1960s war plans apparently envisaged evacuating the Sovereign to the Royal Yacht Britannia, but this might not have been practical, and a land-based refuge would have been desirable. It would appear that, contrary to persistent rumour, there were no plans for the Sovereign to join the Prime Minister at the Corsham bunker complex known variously as Hawthorn, Subterfuge, Site 3, Burlington or Turnstile. Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle would both have been too vulnerable; the former as being in the heart of London - major target in its own right - and Windsor because of its proximity to Heathrow Airport.

Position

Photographs

The following copyright notice for IMAGE 1 is on record:
Photograph by Stuart Yeates from Oxford, This file is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 License

The AddressBalmoral, , Ballater, AB35 5TB

Phone(013397) 42534

DateAug 12, 2006

Contact NameBalmoral Estate

CategoryScotland > Aberdeenshire

Email send email to Balmoral Estate

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