At the end of every summer, Queen Elizabeth II made her annual pilgrimage to Balmoral Castle in Scotland.
She would spend several weeks at the sprawling estate, relaxing and spending time with other members of the royal family who often joined her there.
“I think Granny is the most happy there. I think she really, really loves the Highlands,” Princess Eugenie said in the documentary Our Queen At Ninety.
“Walks, picnics, dogs — a lot of dogs, there’s always dogs — and people coming in and out all the time,” Eugenie continued. “It’s a lovely base for Granny and Grandpa, for us to come and see them up there, where you just have room to breathe and run.”
The Queen would explore the grounds on horseback or behind the wheel of a Range Rover, while Prince Phillip was in charge of the BBQ.
“Grandpa, who’d set off half an hour before us, was already tending his grill at the back of the lodge. He stood amid a thick cloud of smoke, tears streaming from his eyes. He wore a flat cap, which he took off now and then to mop his brow or smack a fly. As the fillets of venison sizzled he turned them with a huge pair of tongs, then put on a loop of Cumberland sausages. Normally I’d beg him to make a pot of his specialty, spaghetti bolognese. This night, for some reason, I didn’t,” Prince Harry wrote in his memoir Spare.
“Granny’s specialty was the salad dressing. She’d whisked a large batch. Then she lit the candles down the long table and we all sat on wooden chairs with creaky straw seats. Often we had a guest for these dinners, some famous or eminent personage. Many times I’d discussed the temperature of the meat or the coolness of the evening with a prime minister or bishop. But tonight it was just family,” he continued.
Former British prime minister Tony Blair also once revealed the royals acted like “regular people” when they were at Balmoral.
“They put the gloves on and stick their hands in the sink,” he said. “The Queen asks if you’ve finished, she stacks the plates up and goes off to the sink.”
Here’s a look inside the Queen’s favourite place.
01
The Castle
The first home was built at Balmoral Estate in 1390. In 1852, Prince Albert purchased the estate as a gift for his wife, Queen Victoria, who loved the Scottish countryside.
They then built the castle that stands today to accommodate their growing family.
02
The Gardens
The gardens are meticulously attended to by a team of seven expert gardeners.
King Charles, like his ancestors before him, is a keen gardener and he even installed a display of tree and shrub borders to the main lawn in front of the castle after his mother died.
03
The Grounds
The grounds of Balmoral Estate stretch for over 50,000 hectares and feature areas of moorland and heath, towering hills and protected woodlands.
The immediate surrounds of the castle feature manicured lawns, a 9-hole golf course and gardens blooming with native species.
04
The Cottages
There are now 150 buildings on Balmoral Estate and 10 of those buildings are cottages members of the public can stay at when they visit the estate.
05
The Interiors
While the royals keep much of the interiors under wraps, Prince Harry did describe the inside of the castle in his memoir.
“Balmoral,” he wrote in Spare. “Closing my eyes, I can see the main entrance, the panelled front windows, the wide portico and three grey-black speckled granite steps leading up to the massive front door of whisky-coloured oak, often propped open by a heavy curling stone and often manned by one red-coated footman, and inside the spacious hall and its white stone floor, with grey star-shaped tiles, and the huge fireplace with its beautiful mantel of ornately carved dark wood, and to one side a kind of utility room, and to the left, by the tall windows, hooks for fishing rods and walking sticks and rubber waders and heavy waterproofs—so many waterproofs, because summer could be wet and cold all over Scotland, but it was biting in this Siberian nook—and then the light brown wooden door leading to the corridor with the crimson carpet and the walls papered in cream, a pattern of gold flock, raised like braille, and then the many rooms along the corridor, each with a specific purpose, like sitting or reading, TV or tea, and one special room for the pages, many of whom I loved like dotty uncles, and finally the castle’s main chamber, built in the nineteenth century, nearly on top of the site of another castle dating to the fourteenth century, within a few generations of another Prince Harry, who got himself exiled, then came back and annihilated everything and everyone in sight.”
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