PRINCE CHARLES WANTS TO OPEN THE ROYAL PALACES WHEN HE BECOMES KING
From Buckingham Palace to Windsor Castle, Balmoral, Sandringham and even Clarence House would be part of this project that would provide income for the maintenance of the historic buildings.
It is unknown when the time will come, but Prince Charles has some plans for the day when he will become King of England. According to The Sunday Times, the son of Queen Elizabeth II will open the palaces when his reign begins. His intention would be to transform royal residences into "public places" without ceasing to be the homes of royals. In the prince's plans they would be from Buckingham Palace to Windsor Castle, Balmoral, Sandringham and even Clarence House, the house where he lives with the Duchess of Cornwall and which now only opens to the public in summer.
The prince would have asked Camilla, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William and Kate Middleton and other family members among whom Queen Elizabeth is believed to be aware of her eldest son's project for an opinion on his idea. The reasons for consulting them are due, among other things, to the fact that they live or spend certain seasons a year in these palaces that Carlos wants to open to the public.
When the prince becomes king, he will live between Buckingham, his Gloucestershire country house, Highgrove, the royal residence of Sandrigham, Norfolk, and Birkhall, his residence located on the estate of Balmoral Castle. Carlos is believed that he will not use Windsor as much as his mother, who has spent most of the confinement there and was a place he used to retreat to before the pandemic.
The prince intends with his project to bring citizens closer to these dependencies and thus "that people connect with the institution." According to a source close to The Sunday Times, the heir to the British throne knows that he must evolve and "in the modern era people want to be able to access their palaces. He accepts it and sees them as public places rather than private spaces." The initiative would also bring income to the Crown for the maintenance of its palaces and royal residences, which is currently financed through a sovereign grant from the British Government - last year it cost 38.3 million pounds.
This decision joins the one recently announced by the queen that will open the Buckingham Gardens for the first time in history for the enjoyment of Londoners and visitors to the British capital. But they will only be open from July to September and Prince Charles wants them to be able to be visited all year round when he is king, just like the interior of the palace.
Today you can visit the State Rooms where treasures and works by artists such as Titian, Rembrandt and Rubens hang, but Carlos would also like to open, among the 775 rooms in Buckingam, the Central Hall whose glass doors open onto the famous palace balcony from where the royal family greets at Trooping the Color, for example; and the Chinese dining room which houses a gilded fireplace that Queen Victoria moved there from the Royal Pavilion in Brighton.
The Belgian Suite could also be opened, a group of rooms located on the first floor of the palace where the foreign heads of state stay -Felipe and Letizia spent the night in it on their visit to London in 2017- when they visit the queen and where Isabel lived II and the Duke of Edinburgh at the beginning of the reign of the monarch. Princes Andrew and Edward were born there, and Kate Middleton and Prince William spent their wedding night. Only once has Buckingham fully opened: in 1993 to help defray the £ 37 million it cost to restore it after the fire.
Balmoral, the Queen's beloved Scottish castle, where it has been said that she could retire for a few months to recover from the death of the Duke of Edinburgh, only opens from April to July part of the gardens and the ballroom where the Queen organizes (or that's how it used to be) two dances -Ghillies Ball- a year.
Something similar happens in Sandringham: the gardens and rooms on the ground floor can be visited from April to October.
