![]() Sculpted yew hedges led into secret gardens connected by formal walkways. Its listing, while part of its charm, meant that nothing inside or out could be altered without permission.įor Camilla, the grounds were its greatest feature. A live-in nanny was hired.Īlthough a magnificent place to live in, Bolehyde with a 7,500 sq ft floor plan was an expensive house to maintain. That vegetable plot and an orchard meant there was a lot of home-grown food on the table.īy the time they moved in, she was pregnant with their first child, Tom, now the food writer and broadcaster. And to start with, the newlyweds did just that. With its stone-flagged reception rooms and big open fireplaces, it was ideal for entertaining. Bolehyde Manor was ideal: close enough to London for Parker Bowles’s Army commitments and just inside Beaufort country, with the biggest and oldest fox hunting pack in England - a big draw for Camilla. According to her biographer Penny Junor: ‘She never saw it, but she could feel it next to her and she would laugh about how she and the ghost always wanted to watch different programmes.’Ĭamilla and Andrew - then Major Parker Bowles - were newly married in 1974 and looking for a country home not to too far from Newbury where they liked to go racing. ![]() The house is said to be haunted but it is not by a tormented Princess of Wales stalking through its oak-panelled rooms, rather an apparition possessing a sense of humour.Īccording to Camilla, she would become aware of its presence when she was watching television and the ghost would sit beside her and change the channels. She, of course, was also married but, when cavalry officer Brigadier Andrew Parker Bowles was away, Charles’s Aston Martin was often to be seen parked on the driveway. The manor house was said to be a favoured destination when Prince Charles was initially wooing Princess Diana some years earlier (both pictured by the River Dee during their 1981 honeymoon) For this was not only the place which set in train Charles and Diana’s doomed marriage, but also where the Prince’s enduring love affair with his second wife Camilla was incubated. And what an extraordinary story this house could tell if its walls of yellow Cotswold stone could talk.ĭespite the Grade II-listed property dating back to the 14th century, it is its much more recent provenance that will excite potential buyers. And, of course, there are also a fair few royal skeletons rattling around its nooks and crannies.Īs ever there is a premium on historic houses, but those that can boast a royal link have an added cachet of their own. The eight-bedroom pile comes with a swimming pool, tennis court, dovecote, treehouse, guest annexe and staff cottages, stables and 70 acres of organic farmland. As the Mail’s Sebastian Shakespeare reported this week, the former home of the Duchess of Cornwall is up for sale at £3.75million, and what an intriguing address it is. ![]() The medieval house near Chippenham, Wiltshire, is back in the news after a scandal-free 35 years. Bolehyde Manor, near Chippenham, Wiltshire, was the former home of the Duchess of Cornwal (then Camilla Parker-Bowles) during her first marriage.
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