Kensington Palace Confirms the Sussexes Will Move to Frogmore Cottage Next Year

Following months of speculation, Kensington Palace has confirmed the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will move to Frogmore Cottage on the Windsor estate early next year ahead of the arrival of their baby. The Palace added: "Windsor is a very special place for Their Royal Highnesses and they are grateful that their official residence will be on the estate. The Duke and Duchess’s office will continue to be based at Kensington Palace."

Royal reporter Emily Andrews exclusively broke the story last night. Emily revealed: 

'The 20-room Apartment 1 at Kensington Palace, next door to William & Kate’s apartment at 1a, will become available next year as the Duke & Duchess of Gloucester are moving to a smaller part of KP. But Harry & Meghan have chosen not to move there.

Instead the Queen has given them Frogmore Cottage in Windsor. It’s within the private Home Park and faces the beautiful grounds of Frogmore House. It’s where they had their private evening wedding party & where their gorgeous engagement pictures were shot. It needs major building work to turn it back into a luxury family home, boasting 10 bedrooms & a new nursery plus space for a gym & yoga studio. Currently it’s been chopped up into 5 units where palace staff have been living. Harry, Meghan & baby Sussex hope to move in next year.

Harry & Meghan will keep their Cotswold pad as their “country home” while Frogmore Cottage will be their main official home.'

The Grade II-listed, two-storey Frogmore Cottage is located in the north of the Frogmore, half a mile from Windsor Castle. It's currently split into five apartments for staff, and a huge amount of renovation work will be required in the coming weeks to make it an official residence.

Omid Scobie reports: "It's been home to  Queen Victoria’s Indian attendant Abdul Karim until 1901, King George V’s cousin Grand Duchess Xenia of Russia until 1936 and Queen Mary from 1937."

The cottage faces the beautiful grounds of Frogmore House where Harry and Meghan's engagement portraits were shot.

Windsor holds a very special place in their hearts. It's understood they enjoyed quality time in Windsor during the early days of their relationship. It came as no surprise when they chose Frogmore House as the location of their wedding reception.

The story follows a Roya Nikkhah exclusive in The Times reporting the Cambridges and Sussexes were planning a formal division of their offices:

'Princes William, 36, and Harry, 34, are considering a formal division of their joint royal household, which is based at Kensington Palace, and the creation of separate courts to reflect their increasingly different responsibilities.

A source close to William and Harry said: “The brothers have leant on each other and looked after each other since their mother died. But now they have their own families, they no longer rely on each other as before.”

While Harry and Meghan’s status as roving royal ambassadors has been assured by their successful tour of Australia, Fiji and Tonga, William must prepare to become the next Prince of Wales. Another source who knows the brothers well said: “There is a gulf in the style and approach to the type of work that William and Kate will increasingly do as future head of state and consort, and Harry and Meghan, who have more of a blank canvas with their roles.”

The source close to the brothers said: “They have become different people with different outlooks on life. Splitting the household is the obvious thing to do.” Kensington Palace declined to comment.'

Whilst we have seen an endless abundance of 'filler' royal stories doing the rounds with little interest in accuracy in recent months, the news would seem to confirm pieces from several royal reporters. There's been a great deal written about the relationship between William and Harry. A much greater deal about the relationship between Kate and Meghan. Much amounts to fictitious gossip at best and irresponsible use of opinion as fact. Emily Andrews writes: "A royal source said: 'The initial plan was for Harry and Meghan to move out of their cottage in the grounds of Kensington Palace and into one of the main apartments. But there has been a bit of tension between the brothers.'" Trusted reporters have long said it was Harry's intention to move into a larger apartment at KP when he married (however, KP have vigorously denied plans to move into a larger Palace apartment in recent months). What I will say is the Sussexes and Cambridges are very different people, with very different approaches to their roles and very different paths ahead. William and Harry have always had an enduring bond and it is my hope that will always be the case. Clearly, given their different visions and futures, it's not working for all four of them together at KP. I say clearly because the Gloucesters are vacating their stately Apartment 1, next door to William and Kate, meaning an ideal KP option was there. As many of us can attest family and in-law dynamics are challenging at the best of times. When you throw in working relationships, tensions can certainly arise. I do expect we'll hear of a formal division of their offices, with Harry and Meghan's being based elsewhere over the next year or so.

There's a number of other layers and factors to consider that haven't received sufficient consideration in my opinion. Given Charles' plans for a streamlined monarchy, it's entirely possible Harry and Meghan's children will not have royal titles and will forge their own career paths. Windsor offers a much more relaxed upbringing for them. Both Harry and Meghan adore the countryside and the Windsor estate is a beautiful place to bring up a family.

Of course, Windsor Castle is the Queen's "weekend home" and they will have plenty of opportunities to spend time with Her Majesty and Prince Philip. The move may have been planned with an eye for the future. Indeed it's long been reported by outlets including The Times that Charles hopes to turn Buckingham Palace into a more business-focused palace rather than the home of the monarch when he is king. In 2011, Andrew Marr revealed senior royal sources told him Charles would potentially base himself at Windsor Castle and not Buckingham Palace as king. The news could very well be a part of the bigger picture. Meghan is incredibly close to Charles, and he sees her and Harry as major players in his monarchy. With Harry's well-established areas of focus and Meghan's work ethic, a dedicated team of their own makes perfect sense to me. Meghan's only been part of the Royal family for six months and we've seen a dedicated, dutiful duchess emerge.

We close with a quote shared by the Queen on Frogmore last year in a pre-recorded message for BBC Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time (with a special thank you to Pepp for sharing):

"I very much hope you have enjoyed visiting Frogmore House and garden, which holds a special place in my family affections. “Indeed, I would echo the sentiments of Queen Victoria, who, 150 years ago, wrote of this dear lovely garden where all is peace and you only hear the gum of bees, the singing of the birds. These days there is more noise from the air than in 1867, but Frogmore remains a wonderfully relaxing environment."

I have no doubt the couple and Baby Sussex will be very happy at Windsor. It's the beginning of an exciting new chapter for them.