Inside the Home Camilla Parker Bowles Bought to Be Closer to Charles Right When He Divorced Princess Diana
After Camilla Parker Bowles (now Camilla, Queen Consort) married Andrew Parker Bowles in the early ’70s, they lived in a beautiful mansion in Wiltshire, England. They divorced two decades later and Camilla bought another home to be closer to then-Prince Charles, who she was having an affair with, and she still owns that property today.
Here are the details on Camilla’s former and current home, plus where she lives now with King Charles III.
The Bolehyde Manor Camilla purchased with her ex-husband
Camilla and Andrew purchased the sprawling Bolehyde Manor in 1973, the same year they tied the knot. Both Charles and Princess Diana were guests at the house when it was the Parker Bowleses’ marital home.
The eight-bedroom property sits on more than 70 acres of land and boasts a number of amenities including a swimming pool, a tennis court, three cottages, gardens, and areas for organic farming.
In 2020, the historic home where the now-queen consort and her ex once lived went on the market and sold for £3.75 million ($4.5 million USD).
According to the listing, the estate “dates back approximately 700 years” and is “steeped in character from the heavy oak front door to the mullion windows and time-smoothed flagstone floors in the principal reception rooms.” It also has “captivating gardens [that] are a carefully restored and wonderfully maintained extension of the main house. With immaculate topiary hedging and attractive stone walling defining individual pockets of character like rooms of varying moods.”
The Ray Mill House house Camilla bought near Charles after his divorce from Diana
Camilla divorced her first husband in 1994 and two years later when Charles and Diana divorced, the king’s mistress bought another place in Wiltshire just 15 minutes away.
Camilla picked up the Grade-II listed property called Ray Mill House for £850,000 ($1 million USD). Some of its amenities include an outdoor swimming pool, stables for horses, and large gardens with a river. In 2006, Camilla’s daughter, Laura, chose the estate as the site of her wedding reception.
So what does it look like inside? Express noted that “the kitchen has yellow walls with red tiles and blue-tiled flooring. The cupboards are white with wooden worktops, and there’s a circular wooden dining table in the middle of the room. The dining room has cream and white baroque print wallpaper and cream carpets. Two large paintings were handing in gold gilded frames, and a large chandelier added a regal touch.” It also has high ceilings throughout and several archways.
Click here for photos of the interior.
Where Camilla and Charles live today
Today, the king and queen consort have a few different royal residences to call home. They have the Highgrove House in Gloucestershire, in addition to Birkhall in Scotland.
Charles and Camilla’s London residence is Clarence House. The adobe was built in the 1800s for Prince William Henry, Duke of Clarence and is adjacent to St. James Palace. It’s where then-Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip lived for a time following their marriage in 1947. It was also home to Queen Elizabeth II’s mom, The Queen Mother, until her death in 2002.
The mansion has of course been redecorated several times over the years, most recently with the help of interior designer Robert Kime. “The major change has been in the dining room which has the unusual and striking bronze coving to the ceiling,” Kathryn Jones, Senior Curator of Decorative Arts for Royal Collection Trust, told Google Arts and Culture. “The other thing that always strikes you when you are inside the house is how much the garden is present–many of the rooms look out into the garden and there is a sense of it almost like an extra room to the house.”
