Birch Hall, a beautiful Georgian mansion in Surrey, was purchased by the Queen in 1997 as a gift for her granddaughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, following their parents’ divorce
The future looks uncertain for Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie. It’s a bleak time for the sisters, who have been forced to watch their parents’ very public fall from grace as a result of their links to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
While Beatrice was photographed visiting Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson at Royal Lodge following his decision to give up his Duke of York title, Eugenie has not been spotted. And both women appear to be publicly distancing themselves from their parents as the furore rumbles on.
In recent months, the sisters have become ‘rare visitors’ to Royal Lodge – the 30-room property they once called home. Andrew is under huge pressure to give up the property; it has been suggested that he had hoped to keep the Lodge within the family, with plans to bequeath it to his two daughters.
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It wouldn’t be the first time the Princesses have missed out on a precious inheritance. In 1997, they were gifted a £1.5million seven-bedroom Georgian mansion in Surrey by their late grandmother, the Queen.
The Grade II-listed property named Birch Hall was purchased by trustees acting on behalf of the Queen following Sarah and Andrew’s divorce in 1996.
But the princesses never actually moved in because their mother was reportedly worried she wouldn’t be able to afford the upkeep and running costs.
Instead, the family continued to live together at Sarah and Prince Andrew’s former marital home, Sunninghill Park.
The Surrey mansion, located in the leafy village of Windlesham, sat empty for two years until being sold in 1999 for £1.5million. It was then put back up for sale in 2016 for £4.2million by the private owners who bought it from the royals.
Birch Hall boasts seven bedrooms, four bathrooms and five living rooms, and it stands on five acres of land with endless lawn space, a tennis court, its very own outdoor heated swimming pool, and a separate two-bedroom cottage for staff. Its later owners added a media and games room, an orangery and a home gym.
When the home went up for sale in 2016, Andrew Russell from estate agency Strutt and Parker told the Daily Mail: “It’s probably one of the very best of north Surrey’s village houses, there’s not that many that come on the market. It’s a proper country house with five acres of grounds.
“The house itself is a very attractive and imposing-looking property. Some of the rooms are really quite dramatic, with high ceilings and full floor to ceiling sash windows. It’s got a swimming pool, tennis court and beautiful specimen trees dating from Victorian times in the garden.”
Speaking of its heritage, Andrew added, “The owners bought it from the trustees acting for the Queen in 1999. The trustees bought it in 1997 for the princesses and I imagine it was chosen because it’s a pretty house in a popular village and the gardens are a real draw, it’s more like parkland. But they never moved in.”
He also explained how its owners had renovated the house: “They reconfigured the staircase and updated the house throughout, moving the kitchen so it overlooks the garden and swimming pool.”
Princess Beatrice currently lives in a £3.5million farmhouse in the Cotswolds with husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi and their children. Eugenie and her family, meanwhile, split their time between Ivy Cottage in Kensington Palace and their primary residence in Portugal.