Balmoral Castle


If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Somone are living in Balmoral castle now?

The Queen and her family and guests are usually in residence at Balmoral during their summer holidays. I think from August til late September if I remember correctly. I'm sure someone on here has more exact information than I do.
 
Yes - The Queen and DoE are currently in residence at Balmoral Castle with Charles and Camilla at Birkhall.

They should be returning to London in the next two weeks.
 
Yes - The Queen and DoE are currently in residence at Balmoral Castle with Charles and Camilla at Birkhall. They should be returning to London in the next two weeks.

The Queen is returning next week after engagements in Aberdeen on 1st October.
 
I don't think it has been announced whether it is this week or next week but she will be in London next week as she has an engagement in London on the 9th. Prior to that she has engagements in Aberdeen on the 1st so she could be returning to London this week or it could be next week but she does have to be back next week.

Philip has to be back in England this week as he has an engagement at Sandringham on Monday.

Charles will have to leave Scotland today as he has one engagement in Scotland and one in Wales today - 29th September. However he is back in Scotland on Monday.

The FE on the British Monarchy site and the Diary on the PoW site both have neither Charles nor Camilla with any engagements in October. The FE also didn't list Charles engagement on the 30th September so maybe they will remain in Scotland for October, although I do expect them to be in London on the 23rd - but who knows?
 
The FA football game at BP is October 7 that William is hosting. All of the articles about the event said the Queen won't be home for it. Today is the last day to tour BP for the public opening.
 
I don't think it has been announced whether it is this week or next week but she will be in London next week as she has an engagement in London on the 9th. Prior to that she has engagements in Aberdeen on the 1st so she could be returning to London this week or it could be next week but she does have to be back next week.

I'm just going off this which was posted on the 26th.

Martin ‏@MartinRoyalUK 39m The Queen will be travelling back down to London from Balmoral next week, after completing several engagements in Aberdeen on 1st October.
 
Does anyone have the layout/floor plan of Birkhall?

How many rooms?

How many bedrooms in total (I read that the Queen mum added 6 bedrooms.)

Any other info and pictures?

Thanks
 
:flowers::royalscotland: In September 1848, Queen Victoria described Balmoral Castle as "A pretty little castle in the old Scottish style".
 
:flowers::royalscotland: In September 1848, Queen Victoria described Balmoral Castle as "A pretty little castle in the old Scottish style".

I am really finding your tidbits of information about various things around the threads very interesting and very informative and want to send a thank you for doing this for us.

I think out of all the royal residences, the one I would most like to spend time at would be Balmoral. For some reason, I'm really drawn to Scotland.
 
:flowers::royalscotland: In September 1848, Queen Victoria described Balmoral Castle as "A pretty little castle in the old Scottish style".


Of course the present castle isn't the same one as Queen Victoria saw in 1848. That one was the one they used until the present castle was commissioned and built in the 1850s when they realised that the one they saw in 1848 was too small for their growing family.
 
Travel to Balmoral

How does the Royal Family typically travel to Balmoral?
 
The original medieval estate was called "Bouchmorale".
Bouchmorale is Gaelic for "majestic dwelling".

In The Queen & Her Court, Jerrold M. Packard wrote:

Victoria and her husband became so caught up with their Scottish home that some wags referred to their stiff court behavior as "Balmorality."

Queen Victoria dubbed Balmoral "My dear paradise in the Highlands".
:royalscotland::walesflag::royalscotland::walesflag::royalscotland::walesflag:

Queen Victoria wrote that Balmoral was 'Albert's own creation, own work, own building, own laying out.'
Also the Queen wrote 'My dearest Albert's ... great taste and the impress of his dear hand have been stamped everywhere.'

 
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How does the Royal Family typically travel to Balmoral?


Before it was decommissioned I think they use to go on their summer cruise on Britannia around Scotland and then dock in Scotland and I imagine drive to Balmoral.

Nowadays the Queen and Charles fly, interestingly they are the only royals for whom official royal funds will cover the cost of flying from residence to residence by private or royal jet, so the Queen and Charles fly from London to Aberdeen. I imagine other royals either fly scheduled or pay for their own private jet or try their hardest to find some official engagements in Scotland to fly from the south to! ;-)

Driving would take a long long time as would a train. I think I may have read somewhere that in years fine by the royal train use to be packed up with all the royal families items, clothes, crockery, etc and travel up to Scotland while they were on board their summer cruise.


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Nowadays the Queen and Charles fly, interestingly they are the only royals for whom official royal funds will cover the cost of flying from residence to residence by private or royal jet\...Sent from my iPad using The Royals Community

The Vanity Fair article this month said said William, Catherine and Cheeks flew in the Duke of Westminster's Cessna to Balmoral last year. The DM also covered this (well, Katie N.) at the time.
 
I think they will do that more often now they have George, I guess they also have more stuff to take, a nanny, security etc. as well as the privacy side, and hey if your godfather has a private jet he is willing to lend you, who would honestly turn him down!


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It's actually the Duchess of Westminster whose is William's godparent not the Duke.


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In The Queen & Her Court, Jerrold M. Packard wrote:

Victoria and her husband became so caught up with their Scottish home that some wags referred to their stiff court behavior as "Balmorality."

Now that is a creative use of the English language if you ask me. :D
 
Now that is a creative use of the English language if you ask me. :D

Osipi, Very well expressed!!!
Balmorality as a vocabulary word would have occurred before December 14, 1861.
December 14, 1861 is the day of the demise of Prince Albert.

A rare peek inside the Queen's Balmoral holiday photo album | Mail Online

I always enjoy seeing older relaxed photos of the RF like these.

The picture of small Prince Charles Philip Arthur George riding on a sculpture is superb!
A truly magnificent three generation photograph to cherish!



In Castles of Great Britain and Ireland. Rodney Castleden wrote:

The estate is now five times larger then when Queen Victoria acquired it and it employs about 50 full-time and 100 part-time staff.
 
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I saw it mentioned in the Cambridge thread that William was given the sole use of a house on the Balmoral estate on his 18th birthday. Is this the case or is it just on an as and when basis?
 
If the information came from a tabloid then we'll never know for sure.
 
It's the Scottish retreat beloved of Queen Victoria - and subsequent generations of royal holidaymakers, the Queen and the Duke of Cambridge among them, love it just as much.
Now, as the Queen arrives at the Aberdeenshire castle to begin her annual summer break, vintage photos reveal just how happy her memories of summers spent there really are.
From her earliest visits as a tiny child with her parents King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to 1950s family picnics with the corgis in tow, Balmoral has long been a haven where family pleasures come first.

A rare peek inside the Queen's Balmoral holiday photo album | Mail Online

I always enjoy seeing older relaxed photos of the RF like these. I haven't seen many photos of Peter Philips when he was a child, but can I just say that he was adorable. In this photo of a young Prince William, I can see a lot of resemblance to Prince George.
 
I was interested to note that on the floorplan of Balmoral Castle there is a room next to the gun room labelled Jäger. As this has some reference to huntsmen in German it may have been that Prince Albert preferred his ghillies to be called Jäger, and the custom's continued.
 
Balmoral visitors at five-year high as Queen moves out - Telegraph

The boost in numbers means tourist revenue now accounts for around half of the £3 million running costs of the castle

Balmoral has recorded the highest number of visitors in five years after the Queen moved out to give tourists free rein of the house.

The boost in numbers means tourist revenue now accounts for around half of the £3 million running costs of the castle.

The total number of visitors edged past 70,000, an increase of five per cent on last summer and nearly a record for the Royal retreat. Some 40 per cent of the tourists came from overseas, underlining the foreign attraction of the British Monarchy.
 
I can imagine Victoria and Albert doing the Highland Fling through the heather!

Do you mean midges? Be careful if you have a picnic. Take someone with you who smokes. Midges loathe cigarette smoke, (don't we all!)

Apparently Queen Victoria got into a tizz one day about one of her maids of honour, Eleanor Stanley sharing a carriage with the elderly married General Grey. They wanted to visit the Duchess of Kent (Victoria's mother) who lived at Abergeldie, five miles from Balmoral. Victoria gave permission but emphasised that it was not to be regarded as a precedent!
 
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