Sandringham - Norfolk
The Sandringham Estate lies in the northwest of Norfolk and within its grounds lies the only personal private house that was owned by Queen Elizabeth the 2nd. The house is listed as grade 2 and the gardens, park and woodlands are on the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. The park is open to the public every day of the year.
Prehistoric flint tools have been found around the area and the remains of a Roman villa have been excavated near Appleton Farm which is on the estate. Sandringham is listed in the Domesday book as Sant Dersingham meaning the sandy part of Dersingham and the land was given to the Norman knight Robert Fitz-Corbun after the battle of Hastings. |
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A house is believed to have stood on the site of the present house since 1296 and in Elizabethan times a large manor house was built. In the 15th century it was held by Anthony Woodville, Lord Scales who was the brother in law to Edward the 4th until it went to the Cobbes family who held the land from 1517 and then to the Hoste family who held it until 1686.
By 1771 the Elizabethan Manor House was demolished and replaced by a Georgian mansion by Cornish Henley who wife was a member of the Hoste family. Before the house was completed, Cornish Henley died and his son sold it on to John Motteux, a London merchant who’s ancestors were persecuted by the French Catholic government for being protestant and took refuge in England in 1685. In his will, Motteux left the estate to his friend Charles Spencer Cowper, the stepson of the future Prime Minister, Discount Palmerston in 1843. Cowper and his wife spent a lot of there time living on the continent and after 10 years he decided to mortgage the house for £89,000. In 1854 after the death of their only child Mary Harriette from cholera, they spent more time abroad and decided to sell the estate.
In 1862, Sandringham House was for sale along with the estate and Queen Victoria and Albert thought it could possibly a house for their son, Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales as he was about to turn 21 that same year and wanted him to move from the family home. Victoria and Albert were disappointed with Edwards lifestyle and thought that marriage and a worthy house would make him settle down. Albert viewed many properties around the country but he had his mind swayed towards Sandringham by the owners stepfather, the now Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston. Unfortunately, Albert died in December of 1861 but the purchase went ahead after a delay.
Edward moved in 3 weeks after his marriage to Princess Alexandra of Denmark, who married in March 1863. The house was very damp in parts, so as Edward and Alexandra started to grow a family, they decided that the house was too small and so had it demolished to have another grander house rebuilt. The main parts of the house was completed in 1870 and a ballroom was added in 1883 with guest and staff accommodation being built in the 1890s. Edward became King after the death of his mother, Queen Victoria on the 22nd of January 1901 and he died on the 6th of May 1910. Queen Alexandra died at Sandringham on the 20th of November 1925. Their son, George the 5th wrote, “Dear old Sandringham, the place I love better than anywhere else in the world", and his grandson, King George the 6th wrote, “I have always been happy here and I love the place”.
In 1932, the 1st Christmas royal speech was broadcast from Sandringham by George the 5th, a tradition that has carried on since but now on television.
Queen Elizabeth the 2nd spent much of her childhood at Sandringham with her sister, Margaret and it was her favourite home to relax since. In 1975, the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Phillip, supervised the demolition of the much unused service wing of the house to remove dry rot and to save on heating costs. The kitchens were moved closer to the dining the dining room.
The gardens were opened to the public in 1908 by King Edward the 7th and in 1930, King George the 5th opened a museum on the grounds. In 1977, the year of the Queens Silver Jubilee, Queen Elizabeth opened the house up to the public.
In the early part of the 20th Century, Prince Christopher of Greece was visiting his much loved aunt, Queen Alexandra, the wife of King Edward the 7th. He was staying in a room in the modern part if the house which he described as very light, very bright and very pleasant. While his valet was organising his evening clothes before dinner, Christopher decided to rest on the bed and read a book. He suddenly felt like he was being watched which made him look around. When he looked toward the vanity unit, he saw the face of a woman in the framed mirror. He said that she was perfectly still and that he could see the smallest details of her appearance. He described her as young and very beautiful, that she had curly brown hair and a pretty dimpled chin. The top half of her face was covered by a small black wolf mask through which her eyes stared straight into his with a painful expression. He said that she looked so real, made of flesh and bone, so much that he looked around the room to make sure. There was no one else around, only the valet who was busy coming and going. The valet even moved towards the mirror to get something from the vanity and passed right by, not noticing anything. He said that he felt that he’d been nailed to the bed. He tried calling out several times, but his throat seemed paralysed. Then as suddenly as she had appeared, the woman disappeared.
He asked his valet if he had seen or heard anything, and he hadn’t noticed anything at all. The dressed for dinner and went downstairs to find his sister Marie and his niece, Princess Victoria who didn’t believe him, they only responded with the usual jokes.
The next morning, after breakfast, Queen Alexandra suggested that they all go and visit the neighbouring Houghton Castle, the home of Lord Cholmondeley, which still belonged to his descendant’s. The owner was not home but the butler showed them around. While Christopher was looking around in the chapel area, Marie and Victoria came running in to him with a pale look upon there faces.
They grabbed his arms and took him to the gallery where they stopped in front of a portrait. ‘Look, do you recognise her?’, they asked. He was speechless as he stood in front of the portrait of the very woman he had seen in his room at Sandringham the day before. She was wearing the exact same dress and in her hand was the little wolf mask that he’d seen her with.
Princess Victoria asked the woman accompanying them and in charge of their visit whether she knew the lady’s identity. She replied saying yes, but no one speaks of her around here. Not without some hesitation, she told us that the lady was the ghost of the family. She said that she believed that no one had seen her for about 70 years. This didn’t explain to Christopher why he’d seen her in a modern room of a royal castle.
Christopher told the story to the a lady-in-waiting of his mothers, Queen Olga, who was so excited by the story that she took it upon herself to do some research on the lady. She discovered that the lady was the spouse of an ancestor of Cholmondeley who treated her bad. As there was no legal path she could take in those times, she could only hope for an intervention by the king, she just wanted to leave the miserable home and go to London.
Her husband took great care to make it impossible for her to regain her freedom, and for the last few years of her life, kept her under lock and key, literally. She ended up dying of the desperation. Since then, legend tells that she appears from time to time to anyone in the vicinity who may have a degree of kinship with the king, imploring them with her melancholic eyes to intercede on her behalf.
After the renovations to the house in 1975, a party was held at the house. One of the guests was allocated a room in the new quarter, which hadn’t been used prior to this event. Around 2am, she woke up to find the room illuminated. The bedroom door opened and a little boy walked in, who was carrying what looked like a long pole with something on the end of it, which she couldn't make out. The boy started to walk around the room, stopping every few steps to reach his pole up the wall, looking is like he was snuffing out non existent candles. She wasn’t afraid by the apparition, she just gazed in amazement. She described him as being dressed in 18th century attire, maybe a young page who’s job it was to put the candles out at night. She watched him walk around the whole room before he disappeared as he came back towards the door.
Staff in Sandringham have reported regular poltergeist activity around Christmas time in the servants quarters. People have witnessed blankets being pulled off them, lights going on and off and books falling or being thrown off shelves.
The royal family spend Christmas at Sandringham every year, something the Queen has done since her father’s death in 1952.
One Christmas in the 1980s, Prince Charles was witness to the activity. He was looking for some old prints with his valet, when they felt that someone was behind them. They both looked around the room to find no one there. Suddenly, Christmas cards started to fly around and books flew off the shelves. After a while, it all calmed down.
The ghost of a woman has often been sighted that is believed to be the shade of Dorothy Walpole, she is also reputed to be the ghost of Raynham Hall, also in Norfolk, the brown lady in the famous ghost photograph taken by photographers from Country Life magazine in 1936.
In the year 2000, staff working at Sandringham refused to enter one of the rooms as a few of them had much experienced paranormal activity. The room in question was the room where King George the 5th, Queen Elizabeth's father, had died in 1952. A service was held by a local parson with the Queens, the Queen Mother and her lady in waiting, Prue Penn all in attendance. The parson walked around the house and said that he could feel a disturbance in the said room where the staff had had the experiences. The congregation took Holy Communion and said prayers for King George’s soul. The room has been inactive since.
Other houses on the estate also have a reputation for being haunted. Appleton House is said to have been once haunted by a woman, until Edward the 7th rebuilt part of the house, having the gateway and dovecote destroyed in the process, maybe also expelling the ghost.
The ghost of a dog has been seen and heard running around the grounds of Amber House, with it, the sounds of a rattling chain, signifying that if could be one of the hunt dogs who escaped once and perhaps went mad.
York Cottage was built as an overflow for the main house at Sandringham. For many years, Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale lived in the house. Albert was a controversial figure, often touted as the worst kings never had. There were rumours of a secret marriage with a model and he had an affair with chorus girl Lydia Miller, who committed suicide. He was also rumoured to be involved with the Cleveland Street scandal of 1889 which was the raid of a male brothel. He was also a key suspect in the Jack the Ripper murders. There are 2 theories which claim that he was the killer, one suggesting that he had contracted syphilis from a prostitute while in the West Indies and the disease had spread to his brain, making him go out on a killing spree in revenge. The other theory was that he’d fell in love with a Catholic girl and they’d secretly married after having a child. Due to her not being suitable for the Prince, royal agents were sent out killing anyone with knowledge of the secret marriage and child.
The Prince had an alibi, he was actually with family and friends in Balmoral in Scotland on the night of the double murder.
Albert proposed to Princess Victoria Mary of Teck in 1891, who would later become Queen Mary and there wedding was planned for February in 1892. Albert fell ill during an influenza epidemic between 1889 and 1892 and he developed pneumonia. Days after his 28th birthday, the Prince died at Sandringham surrounded by his family.
Today, York Cottage is used as the Sandringham Estate office and is also used as staff accommodation. Staff believe that the ghost of Albert often makes his presence known. He has been seen many times walking about the hallways and in various rooms. Doors are opened that have been previously locked and objects are moved to different rooms when they’ve been placed in particular places.