Sandringham House

Sandringham House is a country house in the parish of Sandringham, Norfolk, England. It is one of the royal residences of Charles III, whose grandfather, George VI, and great-grandfather, George V, both died there. The house stands in a 20,000-acre (8,100 ha) estate in the Norfolk Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The house is listed as Grade II* and the landscaped gardens, park and woodlands are on the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. The site has been occupied since Elizabethan times when a large manor house was constructed. This was replaced in 1771 by a Georgian mansion for the owners, the Hoste Henleys. In 1836 Sandringham was bought by John Motteux, a London merchant, who already owned property in Norfolk and Surrey. Motteux had no direct heir, and on his death in 1843, his entire estate was left to Charles Spencer Cowper, the son of Motteux's close friend Emily, Viscountess Palmerston. Cowper sold the other properties and embarked on rebuilding at Sandringham. He had an extravagant lifestyle, and within ten years the estate was mortgaged. In 1862, Sandringham and just under 8,000 acres (3,200 ha) of land were purchased for £220,000 for Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, (later Edward VII), as a country home for him and his future wife, Princess Alexandra of Denmark. Between 1870 and 1900, the house was almost completely rebuilt in a style described by Pevsner as "frenetic Jacobean". Albert Edward also developed the estate, creating one of the finest shoots in England. Following his death in 1910, the estate passed to Edward's son and heir, George V, who described the house as "dear old Sandringham, the place I love better than anywhere else in the world". It was the setting for the first royal Christmas broadcast in 1932. George died at the...