Talk:List of British royal residences

Idea: rename this to "List of British and Commonwealth royal residences"
Why not include the Commonwealth realms in this list as well? A certain Rideau Hall is worth mentioning, but it's a Canadian royal residence. Never mind the fact that British royal family members tend to be Commonwealth royal family members as well...68.36.120.7 (talk) 06:03, 15 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I think listing all of the Royal Family's official residences would make the article somewhat unruly. When you count all the residences in all the Commonwealth realms, it ends up being many dozens of homes in 16 countries around the world. I think the central focus of this article is to list the Royal residences located within the United Kingdom. If there are others who feel that the current title is misleading, perhaps a more clear title might be something like "List of Royal residences in the United Kingdom" Crm18 (talk) 22:33, 2 May 2011

Hillsborough Castle
If Hillsborough Castle is an official residence of the Queen in Northern Ireland, why doesn't the official website of the monarchy (www.royal.gov.uk) identify it as such? The website makes no mention of this status for the castle.

Also, if the castle is indeed an "official" royal residence, shouldn't it be included toward the beginning of the article in the section which lists the Queen's official and private residences? Crm18 (talk) 22:30, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

== arrest procedures/Fagan incident

Fire destroyed Sunninghill Park's first house?
The article for Sunninghill Park doesn't actually say when or how a fire destroyed the first house on the property. What's the story here? --RThompson82 (talk) 02:17, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Villa Guardamangia
Can Villa Guardamangia in Malta be included on this list? The Queen lived there while she was still a princess, between 1949 and 1951. Xwejnusgozo (talk) 20:33, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Ownership Status of Royal Residences
Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, as far as I know, are part of the Occupied Palaces Estate, which is distinct from the Crown Estate. While the Crown Estate is self-financed and is managed by an independent board, the Occupied Palaces Estate is funded by the government (via the Department of Culture, Media and Sport) and its management is delegated to the Royal Household. The Wikipedia article, in its present form, is full of inaccurate information. 161.24.19.44 (talk) 12:57, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

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Crown Lands vs. Crown Estate
The palaces owned by the Crown are "Crown Lands" but as I understand it are quite distinct from those under the control of the Crown Estate. See www.crownestate.co.uk for more. LE (talk) 18:39, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you, it has been corrected. Firebrace (talk) 10:33, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

What is the Crown?
In the legal case Town Investments Ltd vs Department of the Environment (1978), judge and Law Lord, Kenneth Diplock, presented all definitions of 'the Crown':

"The expression 'the Crown' may sometimes be used:
 * 1) To designate Her Majesty in a purely personal capacity
 * 2) To designate Her Majesty in Her capacity as Head of the Commonwealth
 * 3) To designate Her Majesty in Her capacity as the constitutionl Monarch of the United Kingdom
 * 4) In a somewhat broad sense in reference to the functions of government and the administration [civil service]
 * 5) In reference to the Rule of Law"

Constitutional and Administrative Law (2003) says that (my bold):

"For all practical purposes, however, and in terms of everyday usage and understanding, it is the fourth of these meanings which should be preferred. Thus when 'the Crown' is spoken of in constitutional law, this is normally for the purpose of referring to all those institutions and, in particular, central government departments and those who work within them (civil or 'Crown' servants), who are responsible for managing public affairs at a national level."

I previously have noted at Talk:Windsor Castle the different legal meanings of a 'Crown building':

"According to the Building Act 1984, a Crown building is defined as 'a building in which there is a Crown interest or a Duchy interest'. Crown interest means 'an interest belonging to Her Majesty in right of the Crown, or belonging to a government department, or held in trust for Her Majesty for the purposes of a government department."

So 'the Crown' is a vague, ill-defined term, which can mean either a monarch or the government, and that is precisely why we do not refer to royal palaces, or any other royal property, as belonging to 'the Crown'. Instead, we clarify the non-governmental ownership, as official sources do, with "the Queen / a monarch in right of the Crown".

Firebrace (talk) 11:17, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

What is the State?
Re, per Constitutional and Administrative Law (2003), page 8: "English constitutional law contains no exact or fixed definition of [the state]. Once again, therefore a variety of meanings may be attributed to it". In D vs National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (1978), Lord Simon defined 'the state' as "the whole organisation of the body politic for civil rule and government - the whole political organisation which is the basis of civil government".

"The state" is another vague term that can mean a number of things, but in the everyday sense refers to the government and apparatus of civil rule, not to the royal family. Your repeated efforts at obfuscation are unacceptable; we will stick to reliable sources, which say that non-personally owned royal residences are owned by a monarch in right of the Crown or Duchy of Lancaster, instead of merely using abstract terms like 'the state' or 'the Crown' without any context. Firebrace (talk) 14:16, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I never said they weren't owned by the monarch in right of the Crown, but that's not what the article said, which is why I changed it. Celia Homeford (talk) 14:18, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
 * A definition of "in right of the Crown" can be found at the Crown Estate website: "The Crown Estate is though owned by the Monarch in right of the Crown. This means that the Queen owns it by virtue of holding the position of reigning Monarch, for as long as she is on the throne, as will her successor". Now you see why "owned by a monarch by virtue of his or her position as the Crown" is accurate, although perhaps we could dispense with the vague term "the Crown" altogether and have "owned by a monarch by virtue of his or her position as king or queen". What do you think? Firebrace (talk) 14:26, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Reorganisation into a single, sortable table
Would it be clearer to have a single table of current residences? The information is currently duplicated between the list by member and the list by type, which could lead to inconsistencies, and makes the article longer and more unwieldy than it really needs to be. A sortable table would also remove the need for individual section headings (which contain links, counter to the MoS for section headings), since users could sort the table by member, type, name etc as they wanted.

I'd propose a sortable table with headings along the lines of Residence, Location, Type (crown/privately owned etc), Members/Notes? Marksp9517 (talk) 10:48, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Formatting
I added a map to this page, I also wanted to add some images to remove whitespace to the left however the map only aligns with the last image. Is there a way to get the top map aligned with the top image to remove whitespace? Mn1548 (talk) 15:51, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

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Time spent at each
Are there any sources on how much time the queen in particular spends at each residence? There is a long-established regular cycle of Balmoral in the Summer and Sandringham at Christmas, but what is the balance of time spent between Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle? And are Balmoral and Sandringham ever visited outside of the annual lengthy stays, or are they just shut up and empty for most of the year (presumably with staff keeping everything maintained)? Similar questions for how much time the Prince of Wales spends at Highgrove versus in London, and for the other members of the family. Beorhtwulf (talk) 19:50, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Queen's residences
Should the Queen be listed as a resident of the King's residences? Right now it looks like she's only listed on the residences he had before he became King. I suspect that when people updated this list when he became King, they just didn't think to add her. - 2603:9000:E408:4800:8953:25B7:AB80:700B (talk) 00:35, 6 October 2022 (UTC)