Balmoral Castle
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Balmoral Castle is a large mansion situated in the area of Aberdeenshire, Scotland known as Royal Deeside. The estate was purchased by Queen Victoria's consort Prince Albert, and remains a favorite summer Royal Residence.
The estate has been passed down the generations and has gradually expanded to more than 20,000 hectares (50,000 acres) [1]. Today it is a working estate, employing 50 full time staff and 50 to 100 part time.
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[edit] Early history
The Balmoral Estate began as a home built by Sir William Drummond in 1390. The estate was formerly owned by King Robert II (1371–1390), who had a hunting lodge in the area. After Drummond, the estate was sold to Alexander Gordon, the 3rd Earl of Huntly, in the 15th century. The estate remained in the family's hands until it was sold in 1662 to the Farquharsons of Invery, who sold the estate in 1798 to the 2nd Earl of Fife. The estate formed part of the coronation activities of King George IV in 1822.
[edit] Royal residence
Balmoral is today best known as a Royal Residence, the summer retreat of Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh. The history as a Royal Residence dates back to 1848, when the house was rented to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert by the trustees of Sir Robert Gordon (who had obtained a long-term lease of the castle in 1830 and died in 1847). They very much enjoyed their stay in the house, and they paid just over £30,000 for full ownership in 1852. Prince Albert immediately started making plans with William Smith (architect) to extend the existing fifteenth century castle, and make a "new" and bigger castle fit for the Royal Family.
In 1856 the building was completed, it now being a full and working estate with around 100 buildings surrounding the castle itself. The castle not including its land and estate is valued at around £160 million[citation needed] and remains privately owned by the British Royal Family.
Along with Sandringham House, Balmoral is private property and not part of the royal estate. This became an issue in 1936, when Edward VIII abdicated as king but did not automatically relinquish the private property he had inherited. George VI had to explicitly purchase Balmoral and Sandringham from his older brother, so that they could remain private retreats for the monarch.
Today, the Balmoral Estate is still in working order, occupying over 200 km² of land. The Royal Family employs around 50 full-time and 50–100 part-time staff to maintain the estate and look after the animals, and so on. The part-time staff are used particularly when the Queen makes her annual visit.
There has been some speculation that Balmoral Castle may have been earmarked as a royal refuge in the event of nuclear war.[citation needed] In the 1960s war plans apparently envisaged evacuating the Sovereign to the Royal Yacht Britannia, but this might not have been practical, and a land-based refuge would have been desirable. It would appear that, contrary to persistent rumour, there were no plans for the Sovereign to join the Prime Minister at the Corsham bunker complex known variously as Hawthorn, Subterfuge, Site 3, Burlington, or Turnstile.[citation needed] Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle would both have been too vulnerable, the former as being in the heart of London — a major target in its own right — and Windsor because of its proximity to Heathrow Airport.
The Queen was in residence at Balmoral at the time of the 1997 death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Her initial decision not to return to London or to more publicly mourn was much criticised at the time. Her private discussions with Prime Minister Tony Blair are dramatised in the movie The Queen.
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