CHARLES' HOME AWAY FROM THRONE

A new documentary goes through the keyhole of the royal retreat that has served generations of Windsors and plays a crucial role in the King's happiness

- By Karen Rockett

EVERYONE has heard of Balmoral, the Royal Family's majestic 50,000-acre estate and the centre of their annual pilgrimage to the Highlands. But what many people don't know is that there's another royal retreat hidden deep in those forests, just six miles from the castle - a secret sanctuary King Charles has managed to keep just for himself.

It has been the scene of many pivotal moments in the King's life. It's here he would hide out with his beloved grandmother, the Queen Mother, when it all got too much at his hated boarding school Gordonstoun. It's where he enjoyed family holidays with Princess Diana in the early years of their marriage when William and Harry were little.

It was where he chose to recuperate from a serious polo accident and where the scandal of his affair with Camilla Parker Bowles was blown wide open, when she was snapped leaving the hideaway while Diana was 500 miles away in Kensington Palace.

Later it would be where he would propose to his beloved Camilla and where they enjoyed their honeymoon after their marriage in 2005.

It is, in fact, the only royal property that could be truly considered a marital home to them. When his mother Queen Elizabeth died in 2022, it was here, not Balmoral with the rest of the royals, that he and William slipped off to, to discuss the funeral and the future.

In fact, it was here Charles had been taking a break from his dying mother's bedside when the call came through to tell him that she had passed. "Your Majesty," a courtier began, and it was all Charles needed to hear to know that he was now King.

Learning the most important news of his life happened here, his favourite place in the world.

For this is Birkhall, the house that means the most to King Charles out of his huge property portfolio.