Now that nearly all of the royals are working from home, they’ve been sharing glimpses of their taste in decor. While Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall got high marks from @ratemyskyperoom, other royals have shared a few surprises, like Sophie, Countess of Wessex’s extensive DVD collection or Princess Anne’s decorative ceramic chickens. As the trend spreads to other royals, the public is getting to take a look at spaces they’ve never had access to. This week, Prince Richard and his wife, Birgitte, Duchess of Gloucester shared images from inside their house, and it’s the first look we’ve gotten of the Old Stables, a Kensington Palace cottage with a long and storied history. On a phone call with a veteran’s charity Monday, Richard showed the view from a study:
On Tuesday, Birgitte was photographed in a sitting room with bright turquoise walls. Behind her is a watercolor painting of the Changing of the Guard, the Buckingham Palace tradition suspended by the coronavirus crisis.
Richard, who is Queen Elizabeth’s cousin, and his wife spent decades living in the palace’s Apartment 1, where Kate Middleton and Prince William had been their neighbors beginning in 2014. They raised their three children in the sizable apartment, and last fall decided to downsize. After a £400,000 renovation mostly aimed at upgrading outdated mechanical and electrical systems, the couple moved in last September.
For decades, the Old Stables was home to Sir Alan Lascelles, a longtime friend and private secretary to Edward VIII and George VI who many in the family called Tommy. (He was played by Pip Torrens on The Crown where he was best known for his serious demeanor and large mustache.) Tommy was also close to with Richard’s father, Prince Henry, during his life, though he did once complain about Henry’s “strange irritating and whinny” in his diaries, which were published in 2006. A few years before his death in 1981, Tommy was photographed in the gardens surrounding the cottage. Few photos of the interiors have survived, though guests said it was lavishly decorated.
The palace doesn’t always announce who lives in which part of the palace, but, according to the Evening Standard reported that Army chiefs Sir David Richards, Sir Mike Jackson and Lord Richard Dannatt lived at the stables in the decades that followed.
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