Sandringham House
Encyclopedia
Sandringham House is a country house on 8000 hectares (19,768.4 acre) of land near the village of Sandringham
in Norfolk
, England. The house is privately owned by the British Royal Family
and is located on the royal Sandringham Estate, which lies within the Norfolk Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
.
, who added an elaborate porch and conservatory, designed by architect
Samuel Sanders Teulon
.
In 1862, the hall was purchased by Queen Victoria
at the request of the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII
) as a home for himself and his new bride, Alexandra
. However, in 1865, two years after moving in, the prince found the hall's size insufficient for his needs, and he commissioned A J Humbert to raze the hall and create a larger building.
The resulting red-brick house was completed in late 1870 in a peculiar mix of styles that is generally looked upon as not the most successful of mid-Victorian country house designs. This section incorporated the galleried entrance hall which is used by the royal family for entertaining and family occasions. A new wing was later added to one end of the house in a more traditional style, incorporating a ball room, and this wing is generally regarded a more coherent design. The architecture may be unremarkable, but it was ahead of its time in other ways, with gas lighting
, flushing water closets, and even an early form of shower. One part of the house was destroyed in a fire during the preparations for Prince Albert Edward
's 50th birthday in 1891, and later rebuilt.
Sandringham House has been the private home of four generations of Sovereigns. Although doubtful at first, Princess Alexandra came to love Sandringham. The main features of the new building were bay windows, which helped lighten the interior. The new building was designed with the family's comfort in mind and was never intended to be an architectural statement in the way some royal homes have been. Despite the size of Sandringham and the spaciousness of the main rooms, the living quarters were quite cramped.
Edward and Alexandra's sons, Prince Albert Victor
and Prince George
, for example, had very small bedrooms. The spacious grounds, however, provided room for Queen Alexandra's growing menagerie of horses, dogs, cats, farmyard turkeys, and other animals - including a large but gentle ram rescued from an Egyptian butcher. The animals of course enchanted the children and in turn her grandchildren. The children of King George V
used to love to visit Sandringham and their grandparents. A stuffed baboon in the great hall with a tray for calling cards was another favorite of the children. Both but especially Queen Alexandra loved to dote on them. The atmosphere was far different from at home, especially when their father was about. The kennels were a particular delight to the children. Since the death of Edward VII, Sandringham has been used as a popular holiday retreat for successive members of the Royal Family.
Since King George VI
died in 1952 at Sandringham, Queen Elizabeth II's
custom has been to spend the anniversary of her father's death and her own Accession privately with her family at the House. It is her official base until February each year. The house was first opened to the public in 1977, and there is a museum with displays of Royal life and Estate history.
The estate has long been a favourite of the Royal Family
, who still spend each New Year in the house. It is also an excellent location for shooting
and is used for royal shooting parties. Such was Edward VII
's fondness for hunting on the estate, he ordered all the clocks to be set half an hour ahead of GMT
to allow more time for the sport. This tradition of Sandringham Time
was kept on the estate from 1901 until 1936 when the new King Edward VIII showed he was "a new broom" by sweeping the custom away.
The estate is also home to York Cottage
, built by Edward VII
soon after he moved in, and a favourite of George V. Anmer Hall
on the grounds is a Georgian
house that was at one point the country home of the Duke of Kent
.
Along with Balmoral Castle
, Sandringham House is the private property of the British royal family
and not part of the Crown Estate
. Their succession became an issue in 1936, when Edward VIII
abdicated as king
. Being legacies Edward had inherited from his father, George V
, the estates did not automatically pass to his younger brother George VI
on abdication. George, during his reign, made periodic payments to Edward as compensation for Balmoral and Sandringham, but transactions between royals generally being secret, it is not known whether title was actually transferred. Under the doctrine of sovereign immunity
, no British court has power to dispossess a sovereign from the possession of real estate, since the sovereign may not be sued in his own courts without his consent.
Queen Alexandra
, her sons Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale and George V
, and grandson George VI
all died at Sandringham.
Victoria, Princess Royal
, daughter of Queen Victoria and mother of Kaiser Wilhelm II, had a country house
built at Friedrichshof, near Kronberg, in the style of Sandringham.
, and Princess Maud
were married in July 1896, Appleton House was a wedding gift to them from the bride’s parents, the Prince and Princess of Wales. The gift was intended to provide the newly married couple with a place to stay whenever they visited England. The Prince of Wales
wrote to his Danish brother-in-law, Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark, “I have given Maud and Charles a small house, their own country retreat – about one mile from here – they will always have a pied-à-terre when they come over to England. I know they will appreciate this very much.”
A few months before the wedding the couple went to the adjacent Sandringham to view their wedding gift. “I saw my new house. It is quite lovely,” Prince Carl wrote in a letter.
Queen Maud came to love the house. In 1899 she wrote in a letter, “Our little house is a perfect paradise, it all seems like a dream, that we are here at last, that it is so beautiful and light, every single room is so clean and fresh and such wonderful care has been taken of my things, as we have two very able maids who are here year-round.” Their son, the future King Olav V of Norway
, was born in 1903 at Sandringham.
Appleton House was hardly a “small house” by today’s standards. The house was on 2½ floors and was built of brick. It had four sitting rooms on the ground floor and the same on the first floor, together with rooms for the servants, 20 rooms in total. The house had a conservatory and was centrally heated and appeared as a rural idyll, covered in Virginia creeper and ivy.
The property stood alone, surrounded by forested parkland in Flitcham, Norfolk
adjacent to Sandringham. The open, rolling character of the surrounding landscape inspired outdoor pursuits on horseback or by bicycle. It was also full of good subjects for Queen Maud, who was a keen amateur photographer.
Around the house the Prince of Wales had laid out a garden, designed in accordance with the tastes of the day. Here there were round, oval, triangular and square beds of roses and rhododendrons. There were extensive lawns and tall hedges of yew and box, with paths between them. Queen Maud enjoyed taking walks along these paths. “Her albums contain many photographs that show her wandering alone along these paths – clad in a full-length, white dress, her parasol lifted high.”
In 1938, two days after Queen Maud’s interment, her husband, King Haakon wrote to King George VI and informed him that the time had come to return Appleton House to the British Royal Family. The Queen had had the property as long as she had wanted, just as the Prince of Wales had said she could when she was given it in 1896.
Appleton House no longer exists. King Haakon and Princess Maud's son, King Olav recalled many years later, “The Queen’s empty house.” For many years the house stood unused. Its last known inhabitants were King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, who lived in the house during a visit to Norfolk during World War II (1939–1945). A 1968 newspaper article with the headline “The Queen’s empty house” reported that a large anti-air raid structure had been constructed around the property during WWII and that this was unattractive and expensive to remove. In addition it would have been extremely costly to restore the property to a habitable state again. Under the circumstances, reopening Appleton House was not considered a feasible option. It was pulled down in July 1984.
Sandringham, Norfolk
Sandringham is a village and civil parish in the north of the English county of Norfolk. The village is situated some south of the village of Dersingham, north of the town of King's Lynn and north-west of the city of Norwich....
in Norfolk
Norfolk
Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...
, England. The house is privately owned by the British Royal Family
British Royal Family
The British Royal Family is the group of close relatives of the monarch of the United Kingdom. The term is also commonly applied to the same group of people as the relations of the monarch in her or his role as sovereign of any of the other Commonwealth realms, thus sometimes at variance with...
and is located on the royal Sandringham Estate, which lies within the Norfolk Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty is an area of countryside considered to have significant landscape value in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, that has been specially designated by the Countryside Agency on behalf of the United Kingdom government; the Countryside Council for Wales on...
.
History and current site
The site has been occupied since Elizabethan times, and, in 1771, architect Cornish Henley cleared the site to build Sandringham Hall. The hall was modified during the 19th century by Charles Spencer Cowper, a stepson of Lord PalmerstonHenry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, KG, GCB, PC , known popularly as Lord Palmerston, was a British statesman who served twice as Prime Minister in the mid-19th century...
, who added an elaborate porch and conservatory, designed by architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
Samuel Sanders Teulon
Samuel Sanders Teulon
Samuel Sanders Teulon was a notable 19th century English Gothic Revival architect.-Family:Teulon was born in Greenwich in south-east London, the son of a cabinet-maker from a French Huguenot family. His younger brother William Milford Teulon also became an architect...
.
In 1862, the hall was purchased by Queen Victoria
Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....
at the request of the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII
Edward VII of the United Kingdom
Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910...
) as a home for himself and his new bride, Alexandra
Alexandra of Denmark
Alexandra of Denmark was the wife of Edward VII of the United Kingdom...
. However, in 1865, two years after moving in, the prince found the hall's size insufficient for his needs, and he commissioned A J Humbert to raze the hall and create a larger building.
The resulting red-brick house was completed in late 1870 in a peculiar mix of styles that is generally looked upon as not the most successful of mid-Victorian country house designs. This section incorporated the galleried entrance hall which is used by the royal family for entertaining and family occasions. A new wing was later added to one end of the house in a more traditional style, incorporating a ball room, and this wing is generally regarded a more coherent design. The architecture may be unremarkable, but it was ahead of its time in other ways, with gas lighting
Gas lighting
Gas lighting is production of artificial light from combustion of a gaseous fuel, including hydrogen, methane, carbon monoxide, propane, butane, acetylene, ethylene, or natural gas. Before electricity became sufficiently widespread and economical to allow for general public use, gas was the most...
, flushing water closets, and even an early form of shower. One part of the house was destroyed in a fire during the preparations for Prince Albert Edward
Edward VII of the United Kingdom
Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910...
's 50th birthday in 1891, and later rebuilt.
Edward and Alexandra's sons, Prince Albert Victor
Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence
Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale was a member of the British Royal Family. He was the eldest son of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales and Alexandra, Princess of Wales , and the grandson of the reigning monarch, Queen Victoria...
and Prince George
George V of the United Kingdom
George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....
, for example, had very small bedrooms. The spacious grounds, however, provided room for Queen Alexandra's growing menagerie of horses, dogs, cats, farmyard turkeys, and other animals - including a large but gentle ram rescued from an Egyptian butcher. The animals of course enchanted the children and in turn her grandchildren. The children of King George V
George V of the United Kingdom
George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....
used to love to visit Sandringham and their grandparents. A stuffed baboon in the great hall with a tray for calling cards was another favorite of the children. Both but especially Queen Alexandra loved to dote on them. The atmosphere was far different from at home, especially when their father was about. The kennels were a particular delight to the children. Since the death of Edward VII, Sandringham has been used as a popular holiday retreat for successive members of the Royal Family.
Since King George VI
George VI of the United Kingdom
George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death...
died in 1952 at Sandringham, Queen Elizabeth II's
Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom
Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...
custom has been to spend the anniversary of her father's death and her own Accession privately with her family at the House. It is her official base until February each year. The house was first opened to the public in 1977, and there is a museum with displays of Royal life and Estate history.
British Royal Family
The British Royal Family is the group of close relatives of the monarch of the United Kingdom. The term is also commonly applied to the same group of people as the relations of the monarch in her or his role as sovereign of any of the other Commonwealth realms, thus sometimes at variance with...
, who still spend each New Year in the house. It is also an excellent location for shooting
Hunting
Hunting is the practice of pursuing any living thing, usually wildlife, for food, recreation, or trade. In present-day use, the term refers to lawful hunting, as distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species contrary to applicable law...
and is used for royal shooting parties. Such was Edward VII
Edward VII of the United Kingdom
Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910...
's fondness for hunting on the estate, he ordered all the clocks to be set half an hour ahead of GMT
Greenwich Mean Time
Greenwich Mean Time is a term originally referring to mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London. It is arguably the same as Coordinated Universal Time and when this is viewed as a time zone the name Greenwich Mean Time is especially used by bodies connected with the United...
to allow more time for the sport. This tradition of Sandringham Time
Sandringham Time
Sandringham time is the name given to the idiosyncratic alterations that King Edward VII made to the timekeeping at the royal estate of Sandringham...
was kept on the estate from 1901 until 1936 when the new King Edward VIII showed he was "a new broom" by sweeping the custom away.
The estate is also home to York Cottage
York Cottage
York Cottage is the former home of the Duke and Duchess of York , who lived in the house after their marriage in 1893. It is currently used as the Estate Office for Sandringham House. Some of the building is also used as flats for estate employees and holiday accommodation....
, built by Edward VII
Edward VII of the United Kingdom
Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910...
soon after he moved in, and a favourite of George V. Anmer Hall
Anmer Hall
Anmer Hall is situated in the Norfolk village of Anmer in England, about two miles east of The Queen's residence at Sandringham. Leased by the Duke and Duchess of Kent as their country house from 1972 until 1990, it has formed part of the Sandringham estate since 1898.It is a late-Georgian house,...
on the grounds is a Georgian
Georgian era
The Georgian era is a period of British history which takes its name from, and is normally defined as spanning the reigns of, the first four Hanoverian kings of Great Britain : George I, George II, George III and George IV...
house that was at one point the country home of the Duke of Kent
Prince Edward, Duke of Kent
The Duke of Kent graduated from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst on 29 July 1955 as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Scots Greys, the beginning of a military career that would last over 20 years. He was promoted to captain on 29 July 1961. The Duke of Kent saw service in Hong Kong from 1962–63...
.
Along with Balmoral Castle
Balmoral Castle
Balmoral Castle is a large estate house in Royal Deeside, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It is located near the village of Crathie, west of Ballater and east of Braemar. Balmoral has been one of the residences of the British Royal Family since 1852, when it was purchased by Queen Victoria and her...
, Sandringham House is the private property of the British royal family
British Royal Family
The British Royal Family is the group of close relatives of the monarch of the United Kingdom. The term is also commonly applied to the same group of people as the relations of the monarch in her or his role as sovereign of any of the other Commonwealth realms, thus sometimes at variance with...
and not part of the Crown Estate
Crown Estate
In the United Kingdom, the Crown Estate is a property portfolio owned by the Crown. Although still belonging to the monarch and inherent with the accession of the throne, it is no longer the private property of the reigning monarch and cannot be sold by him/her, nor do the revenues from it belong...
. Their succession became an issue in 1936, when Edward VIII
Edward VIII of the United Kingdom
Edward VIII was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth, and Emperor of India, from 20 January to 11 December 1936.Before his accession to the throne, Edward was Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall and Rothesay...
abdicated as king
Edward VIII abdication crisis
In 1936, a constitutional crisis in the British Empire was caused by King-Emperor Edward VIII's proposal to marry Wallis Simpson, a twice-divorced American socialite....
. Being legacies Edward had inherited from his father, George V
George V of the United Kingdom
George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....
, the estates did not automatically pass to his younger brother George VI
George VI of the United Kingdom
George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death...
on abdication. George, during his reign, made periodic payments to Edward as compensation for Balmoral and Sandringham, but transactions between royals generally being secret, it is not known whether title was actually transferred. Under the doctrine of sovereign immunity
Sovereign immunity
Sovereign immunity, or crown immunity, is a legal doctrine by which the sovereign or state cannot commit a legal wrong and is immune from civil suit or criminal prosecution....
, no British court has power to dispossess a sovereign from the possession of real estate, since the sovereign may not be sued in his own courts without his consent.
Queen Alexandra
Alexandra of Denmark
Alexandra of Denmark was the wife of Edward VII of the United Kingdom...
, her sons Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale and George V
George V of the United Kingdom
George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....
, and grandson George VI
George VI of the United Kingdom
George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death...
all died at Sandringham.
Victoria, Princess Royal
Victoria, Princess Royal
The Princess Victoria, Princess Royal was the eldest child of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert. She was created Princess Royal of the United Kingdom in 1841. She became German Empress and Queen of Prussia by marriage to German Emperor Frederick III...
, daughter of Queen Victoria and mother of Kaiser Wilhelm II, had a country house
Schlosshotel Kronberg
Schlosshotel Kronberg in Kronberg im Taunus was built between 1889 and 1894 for the dowager German Empress Victoria, Princess Royal and named in honour of her husband, Frederick III, German Emperor....
built at Friedrichshof, near Kronberg, in the style of Sandringham.
The Appleton property
When Prince Carl, the future King Haakon VII of NorwayHaakon VII of Norway
Haakon VII , known as Prince Carl of Denmark until 1905, was the first king of Norway after the 1905 dissolution of the personal union with Sweden. He was a member of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg...
, and Princess Maud
Maud of Wales
Princess Maud of Wales was Queen of Norway as spouse of King Haakon VII. She was a member of the British Royal Family as the youngest daughter of Edward VII and Alexandra of Denmark and granddaughter of Queen Victoria and also of Christian IX of Denmark. She was the younger sister of George V...
were married in July 1896, Appleton House was a wedding gift to them from the bride’s parents, the Prince and Princess of Wales. The gift was intended to provide the newly married couple with a place to stay whenever they visited England. The Prince of Wales
Edward VII of the United Kingdom
Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910...
wrote to his Danish brother-in-law, Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark, “I have given Maud and Charles a small house, their own country retreat – about one mile from here – they will always have a pied-à-terre when they come over to England. I know they will appreciate this very much.”
A few months before the wedding the couple went to the adjacent Sandringham to view their wedding gift. “I saw my new house. It is quite lovely,” Prince Carl wrote in a letter.
Queen Maud came to love the house. In 1899 she wrote in a letter, “Our little house is a perfect paradise, it all seems like a dream, that we are here at last, that it is so beautiful and light, every single room is so clean and fresh and such wonderful care has been taken of my things, as we have two very able maids who are here year-round.” Their son, the future King Olav V of Norway
Olav V of Norway
Olav V was the king of Norway from 1957 until his death. A member of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, Olav was born in the United Kingdom as the son of King Haakon VII of Norway and Queen Maud of Norway...
, was born in 1903 at Sandringham.
Appleton House was hardly a “small house” by today’s standards. The house was on 2½ floors and was built of brick. It had four sitting rooms on the ground floor and the same on the first floor, together with rooms for the servants, 20 rooms in total. The house had a conservatory and was centrally heated and appeared as a rural idyll, covered in Virginia creeper and ivy.
The property stood alone, surrounded by forested parkland in Flitcham, Norfolk
Flitcham, Norfolk
Flitcham is a village within the civil parish of Flitcham with Appleton in the English county of Norfolk. The village is West-northwest of Norwich, East-northeast of King’s Lynn and North-northeast of London. The Village is straddles the B1153 just to the north of the A148 Fakenham Road at...
adjacent to Sandringham. The open, rolling character of the surrounding landscape inspired outdoor pursuits on horseback or by bicycle. It was also full of good subjects for Queen Maud, who was a keen amateur photographer.
Around the house the Prince of Wales had laid out a garden, designed in accordance with the tastes of the day. Here there were round, oval, triangular and square beds of roses and rhododendrons. There were extensive lawns and tall hedges of yew and box, with paths between them. Queen Maud enjoyed taking walks along these paths. “Her albums contain many photographs that show her wandering alone along these paths – clad in a full-length, white dress, her parasol lifted high.”
In 1938, two days after Queen Maud’s interment, her husband, King Haakon wrote to King George VI and informed him that the time had come to return Appleton House to the British Royal Family. The Queen had had the property as long as she had wanted, just as the Prince of Wales had said she could when she was given it in 1896.
Appleton House no longer exists. King Haakon and Princess Maud's son, King Olav recalled many years later, “The Queen’s empty house.” For many years the house stood unused. Its last known inhabitants were King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, who lived in the house during a visit to Norfolk during World War II (1939–1945). A 1968 newspaper article with the headline “The Queen’s empty house” reported that a large anti-air raid structure had been constructed around the property during WWII and that this was unattractive and expensive to remove. In addition it would have been extremely costly to restore the property to a habitable state again. Under the circumstances, reopening Appleton House was not considered a feasible option. It was pulled down in July 1984.