On the West side of Norfolk sits the Sandringham Estate,  where the Royal Family spend their Christmas’s together.  Part of the estate is Anmer Hall, which is the country home of the present Prince & Princess of Wales.  King Charles III is now managing the vast estate taking over the reigns of his late father, Prince Philip, when he retired.  Norfolk is a firm favourite destination for past and present Royals.

The gardens of Sandringham House were entered through elaborate wrought iron gates, of a flower and leaf design, known as the Norwich gates, they were given as a wedding present to the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1863 by the County of Norfolk and the City of Norwich.  Sandringham was then purchased by Queen Victoria for £22,000, also in 1863 and was intended as the home of her eldest son and heir, Albert Edward, the future King Edward VII.

The existing house on the Sandringham estate was demolished and replaced in 1869 by the present Jacobean style red brick structure. There Bertie as he was known in the family, lived with his beautiful Danish wife, Princess Alexandra. The house was badly damaged by a fire in 1892 and was subsequently enlarged.

The house parties often held at Sandringham were gay and informal. Bertie and Alexandra loved company and entertaining. Queen Victoria herself visited the house in 1871, when Bertie was dangerously ill with typhoid, the disease that killed his father, he later made a full recovery.

George V and Queen Mary, as the couple became, did not move into Sandringham House until after the death of Queen Alexandra in 1925. They and their family stayed at the cramped York Cottage, a house in the grounds of the estate, where their children where brought up. The King adored the estate, referring to it as “Dear old Sandringham, the place I love better than anywhere else in the world.”  George V died at Sandringham in 1936.

George VI, the father of the present Queen, unaware that he was suffering from lung cancer,  died peacefully in his sleep at Sandringham on 6th February 1952.

The grounds contain the Sandringham Museum and the Queen’s thoroughbred stud. Our late Queen, Elizabeth II, regularly spent Christmas at Sandringham and stayed there until the following February, her annual Christmas broadcasts, a tradition established by her grandfather, George V, are generally made from Sandringham.