From King’s study to iconic drawing room, inside my incredible trip around Balmoral Castle where Queen spent final hours
FOR more than 40 years I have been taking photographs of the Royal Family at their favourite holiday home in the Scottish Highlands, covering the ups and downs of their lives.
It was here I first spotted Prince Charles with Lady Diana Spencer and broke the story of their love affair.
Then Balmoral was the place where the Queen comforted her son Charles and her grandsons in the dark days after Princess Diana’s death in Paris in 1997.
But incredibly, in all that time I had never been inside Balmoral — until now.
Since the Queen’s death in 2022, King Charles has been determined to make the castle the latest royal residence to open to the public.
On April 2, nearly 3,500 “golden tickets” went on sale at £100 each.
Within hours they had been snapped up by tourists all over the world keen to be given guided tours of the house between now and August 4.
Staff will then prepare it for the King’s summer holiday there, which begins on August 19.
I was lucky enough to secure a pair of tickets for the first day, July 1, which coincidentally would have been Princess Diana’s 63rd birthday.
Diana, I knew from our chats over the years, wasn’t keen on Balmoral.
But the Queen told me herself how much she adored this 100-room pile set in a 50,000-acre estate beside the River Dee where she could be a mum and a wife — a world away from her life as the most famous woman on the planet.
On a tour in India, I once asked her: “Why do you always go to Balmoral? Wouldn’t you like to go somewhere else?”
She replied: “Where else could I go?” I said: “You’re the Queen, you can go anywhere in the world.”
She smiled at me and said: “But I quite like it there.”
As the Queen walked away, her lady-in-waiting came over and told me: “When she drives through those gates at Balmoral at the start of her annual holiday, she kicks off her shoes with delight.”
Talking of shoes, every paying visitor to Balmoral has to put on blue plastic covers over their footwear to preserve the colourful hunting Stewart tartan carpet which the King has had laid in many rooms.
Also, every one of the 3,400 lucky visitors who bagged a coveted ticket — from as far afield as Australia and New Zealand — has to leave their phone at the entrance, because selfies are not allowed.
Even as a royal photographer I was not allowed to take any pictures inside.
But here is my verdict on what we saw on our 45-minute tour, which was worth every penny of the £100 fee — and I now understand why the royals love coming here so much.
PAGE’S LOBBY
THE Page is the staff head, on call 24 hours a day, and the one who sees the Monarch first thing in the morning and last thing at night.
The book-lined Page’s Lobby is the only room that looks like the 21st century has caught up with it, with a computer on the desk and a Sky TV box.
It is where the duty Page recorded horse racing so the late Queen could come in from the hills and catch up with the day’s action.
ENTRANCE HALL
INSIDE the entrance are 22 heads of stags that were stalked by every monarch since Victoria, plus a huge wooden fireplace from the original castle she and husband Albert rebuilt.
There is also a bronze statue of King Malcolm, who ruled Scotland in the 11th century.
Wellies, waders and boots worn by the royals sit under tables, along with fishing rods.
DRAWING ROOM
EVERY one of the 30 visitors who went into the drawing room yesterday must have remembered Jane Barlow’s brilliant last-ever photo of the Queen as she stood in front of a blazing fire in her drawing room.
Two days later she passed away. The room is much smaller and intimate that I imagined.
King Charles has changed very little in here since the Queen’s death, though the carpet is the new tartan.
The grand piano is there, where the family used to have singsongs, and there is a fabulous Coronation photo of Charles and Camilla, along with a picture of his beloved gran, the Queen Mum.
Queen Victoria’s tiny chair is also in the room.
TV’s The Crown claimed Mrs Thatcher sat in it, but our guide said it never happened – no one is allowed to sit in Victoria’s chair.
DINING ROOMS
THERE are two dining rooms, one of which is where every PM for more than a century has sat, as have President Eisenhower and Florence Nightingale.
The other, smaller, family dining room nearby used to be a billiard room.
On the larger room’s dining table is a metal figure of Victoria’s favourite servant, John Brown – but he looks nothing like Billy Connolly, who played him on screen.
The room’s paintings have never been exhibited, so we were the first members of the public to see them.
RED CORRIDOR
THE white and gold flock wallpaper in this 30-yard corridor, with its deep red carpet, was made for Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887.
It is so well preserved it looks like it was hung yesterday.
Around the time of the Jubilee, the warship Temeraire, from Nelson’s Trafalgar victory, was broken up, and a gong made from wood and metal from the ship stands in the corridor.
A Latin inscription around the top translates as: “No one attacks me and gets away with it”, the motto of the Royal Family’s clan.
KING’S STUDY
THOUSANDS of books line the walls of the study, which King Edward VII called “the Room of the Unread”.
But it is here, on a desk by the window, that Queen Elizabeth and now King Charles open their red boxes and read their papers of state.
Assistant curator and tour guide Sarah Hoare says: “From his desk, the King has an amazing view down the valley. I don’t know how he gets any work done.”
Sophie's glass act
SOPHIE, Duchess of Edinburgh, showed off her no-handed drinking skills during a carriage-riding challenge at the Sandringham Horse Driving Trials in Norfolk.
She had hubby Edward and daughter Lady Louise laughing as she gripped the water glass in her teeth – prompting the Prince to grab his phone for a snap.
Earlier Sophie was made President of the Trials.