Inside the ‘cosy’ childhood home of the Princess of Wales, which is a long way from Kensington Palace
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The Prince and Princess of Wales moved into a new family home last year, uprooting themselves from life in London for a property on the Queen’s Windsor estate.
Six months ago, the Waleses moved into Adelaide Cottage, a beautiful four-bedroom Grade II listed house. The family had previously settled at Kensington Palace.
However, both palatial properties are a far cry from Kate Middleton’s modest childhood home, where she lived until she was 13 years old.
Having worked as a BA dispatcher and flight attendant, Mike and Carole Middleton bought West View in Bradfield Southend in 1979 for £34,700.
Revealed: The Princess of Wales’s first home, a four-bedroom terraced house in Bradfield Southend, Berkshire
The Princess of Wales spent most of her childhood in Bucklebury, Berkshire and has two younger siblings, Pippa, 39, and James, 35.
Appearing on Giovanna Fletcher’s Happy Mum, Happy Baby podcast in 2020, the mother-of-three opened up about her “very happy” childhood and praised her parents’ “enormous dedication” to her and her siblings.
Her parents Mike and Carole brought the four-bedroom townhouse to Berkshire in 1979.
The Middletons sold the house in 1995 for £158,000 through local estate agent Dudley Singleton.
Carole and Mike Middleton (pictured with four-year-old daughters Kate, left, and Pippa) bought the house in 1979 and raised their family there.
Kate’s First Bedroom: The princess initially slept in a small attic that an adult would have to crouch in.
Fit for a princess: As she grew older, Kate traded her bedroom in the attic for a roomier one, seemingly bigger than her parents’, that could fit a double bed and a desk.
Pictures from 2011 show the kitchen had black and white tile, simple white cabinets, and black work surfaces.
He said the house suggests the future queen comes from “humble beginnings.”
When the property went up for sale in the summer of 2011, Singleton gave a tour of the house to CNN, reminiscing about his time with the Middletons, whom he says he knew “very well.”
“They weren’t pretentious people, they lived here long after they were very successful with their business, and they still run their business out of the shed,” he said.
Starting with the exterior of the house, he told the Daily Mail at the time that the previous owners had divided the large country house into two smaller properties.
Separated by a hedge, he said it left the house looking “a bit crooked” but also larger in appearance than it actually is.
In a video of a tour of the house with CNN, he began by showing the reporter the modest dining room, where he says the family spent most of their time, as it was the “hub of the house.”
The pictures show a large fireplace at the top of the room, with a slim ladder leading up the stairs to the left as they enter.
The layout is practical as the room is right next to the kitchen, which images from 2011 show had black-and-white tile, simple white cabinets, and black work surfaces.
The Middletons sold the house in 1995 for £158,000, through local estate agent Dudley Singleton (he went with Jane Fryer of the Daily Mail)
An open brick fireplace and slim staircase were the main features of the small living room and dining room.
Also off the kitchen-dining area is a cozy sitting room, which Mr Singleton suggested was Mike and Carole’s sanctuary away from their young children, while quickly adding that he doubted Kate would ‘ever be a problem’. ‘.
“They had a wood stove in the [dining room] fireplace and a big table where the young people did their drawings and all that,’ the agent told the Mail.
“Adjacent is the front sitting room that was kept as a bit of adult sanity for Mike and Carole when the kids went to bed.”
On the ground floor there is also a utility room and a small room attached to the building, where Kate and her brothers Pippa and James probably played.
On the first floor was a simply decorated family bathroom, which the family of five would have shared
Kate’s first bedroom was in a small attic space that an adult would have to duck into.
But as it grew older, the Princess changed it to a more spacious room, where a double bed and a desk could fit.
One of two bedrooms on the first floor, Mr. Singleton said “the bigger one was Kate’s” and the smaller one at the front was Carole and Mike’s.
‘Perhaps they had a premonition that she would get somewhere in life?’ she mused.
The house has a large garden where Kate and her younger siblings, Pippa and James, used to play together.
While it was up for sale, more photos of the home’s interior show a simply decorated family bathroom on the first floor, which the family of five would have shared.
Outside, the house’s spacious garden is home to a large, if rather dilapidated, shed, which was, Singleton suggests, the key to the family’s commercial success.
Kate’s parents converted the ramshackle shack into an office when they launched their company, Party Pieces, which grew from shipping small orders of children’s party supplies to a business worth an estimated £33m.
As their business grew, the family moved to Oak Acre, a seven-bedroom house also in Berkshire.
Kate’s parents converted a ramshackle green shed into an office when they launched their company, Party Pieces, which is now worth an estimated £33m.
Slightly worse for china in 2011, one of the outbuildings in the house was used by the Middletons as office space when they lived there.
Then in 2012, while seeking more privacy from the public gaze, Carole and Mike bought Bucklebury Manor for £4.7 million.
With Kate becoming Duchess of Cambridge, Mr. Singleton speculated that the house would be a good investment given its previous inhabitant.
When she becomes queen, her value will double overnight. It will be a memory of her childhood.
A small room on the side of the building overlooks the back garden where Kate would have played as a child.
‘You would have to go all the way back to Boudica’s mud hut to find a more modest house that was once the home of a future queen.’
Royal experts previously recounted how Prince William and Princess of Wales have embraced the ‘Middleton parenting model’ and want their children to see them as their ‘best friends’.
Speaking to Ok!, royal expert Duncan Larcombe said it’s clear the Prince and Princess of Wales have taken inspiration from Kate’s parents Carole, 67, and Michael, 73, in the way they’re parenting. to his children.
The expert said: ‘William has based his children’s education on the Middleton model: three children, wealthy but hard-working parents and lots of love around the house.
‘When Kate was in her early twenties, she counted her mother and father on the list of her best friends. That is what William and Kate aspire to with their children.