Prince William and Kate Middleton spend their time in several residences around the country and the floorplan at their family’s official pad is somewhat unusual

The Prince and Princess of Wales don’t often talk about their home life. However, arrangements when they are at Kensington Palace are slightly different than what you might expect.

This is because they don’t sleep in an upstairs bedroom like most couples – with a floor plan of their home in Apartment 1A of the iconic London building showing where the bedrooms are.

While the couple and their three children, Prince George, 11, Princess Charlotte, nine, and Prince Louis, six, relocated to Adelaide Cottage on the Windsor Estate in September 2022, their former home – which is still listed as the family’s official residence – has always been a bit puzzling.

The couple and their three children mainly live at Adelaide Cottage, on the Windsor Estate ( 
Image:
Aaron Chown/PA)

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Instead of being upstairs, the main bedroom they used to share was on the ground floor of Apartment 1A at Kensington Palace, Cambridgeshire Live reports. This was the former home of Princess Margaret and has 20 rooms, four floors, its own lift, gym, and nine rooms for members of staff.

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The late royal author Christopher Warwick explained why it’s called an ‘apartment’ on True Royalty’s Royal Beat. He said: “All of these royal residences at Kensington Palace are called apartments, which of course makes people immediately think they are flats like the American term for an apartment.”

“They are not. If you think of Kensington Palace in a way, it is built around three courtyards. If you kind of think of them as being these wonderful red brick terrace houses. Because they are all joined, but separate houses.”

While the couple, who appeared in a candid video earlier this month about Kate’s cancer journey, also have access to Anmer Hall in Norfolk they now live at the more modest four-bedroom Adelaide Cottage.

Nestled in the heart of the Crown Estate’s private 655-acre royal park, the home was built in 1831 as a retreat for King William IV’s wife, Queen Adelaide. It comes with a fascinating and scandalous past.

Adelaide Cottage was known to be a favourite home of Queen Victoria as she frequently enjoyed taking her breakfast there. Another of its well known former inhabitants was Princess Margaret’s love interest, Group Captain Peter Townsend.

A former RAF pilot and later an equerry to King George VI, Townsend embarked on a famous love affair with Princess Margaret. Their relationship was particularly sordid as Peter was a divorced man who was 16 years older than her.

Adelaide Cottage underwent major renovations in 2015 and has some seriously elaborate decorations. According to reports, the master bedroom at the cottage reportedly has a ceiling covered with gilded dolphins and a rope decoration.

Following Prince Harry and Meghan’s wedding in 2018, there were brief suggestions that the cottage would be their new Windsor home. It was said that the couple liked how private the cottage was and how close it was to London.

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