Each year, the royal family travel to Balmoral for their summer holidays. But William and Kate won’t stay in the main castle with the rest of their family for one major reason
Each year, in a tradition that was established by the late Queen Elizabeth, the royal family make the trip to Balmoral to enjoy their summer holidays before resuming their royal duties in September.
King Charles and Queen Camilla have been at the Scottish residence for the last week, and have been joined by the Prince and Princess of Wales, as well as Prince Andrew, Sarah Ferguson, Peter Philips and his fiancé Harriet Sperling on the sprawling Aberdeenshire estate.
And while the main Balmoral castle has more than enough room for each of the royal family members who were invited to the Scottish Highlands, William and Kate, along with their three children, chose to stay in another home on the land. It comes as Peter Philips’ fiancé is experiencing the royal family’s infamous ‘Balmoral test’ ahead of wedding.
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The Waleses have their own private property on site, a cottage known as Tam-Na-Ghar, which was gifted to Prince William by his late great grandmother, the Queen Mother, before she passed away in 2002.
The modest home has only three bedrooms, with William and Kate choosing to keep the property extremely private, with very few images of their Scottish home on the stunning 50,000-acre Balmoral estate which features 150 buildings in total.
Tam-Na-Ghar is within close proximity to Birkhall, which is King Charles and Queen Camilla’s residence on the Balmoral Estate.
While on their summer holidays in Balmoral, the royal family stepped out to a Sunday church service in what a body language expert has called a sign of “relaxed unity” as the family joined together.
Body language expert Judi James has said that the royals seemed “relaxed” in the presence of each other and the cameras, with the King especially grateful for the show of unity from some of his closest family.
She told the Mirror: “Being photographed in the car at a family event is not the royals’ favourite pastime. and they can often suggest via their body language that it is something of an ordeal or an intrusion.
“But here the entire top tier seem to be keen to signal a form of relaxed unity, employing smiles and facial expressions that make this look like a positive family outing, and devoid of the more ‘set’ royal smiles that might suggest formality.
“Charles seems to have wound his window down to be more visible here and his occasionally ’chuckling’ smile suggests an appreciation of having some of his closest family members around.”
