Sunninghill Park Information & Sunninghill Park Links at HealthHaven.com

Coordinates: 51°25′34″N 0°39′00″W / 51.426040°N 0.649894°W / 51.426040; -0.649894

Sunninghill Park is a country house and estate of some 665 acres (2.7 km²) north of Sunninghill, lying between Ascot and the southern boundary of Windsor Great Park in Berkshire, England, and was the official residence of the Duke of York from 1990 until 2004.

[edit] First house

Sunninghill Park was originally part of Windsor Forest until 1630 when King Charles I granted it to Thomas Carey. In circa 1633 it was purchased by Sir Thomas Draper and sold in 1769 by his great grandson, Thomas Draper Baber, to Jeremiah Crutchley, whose family owned it until perhaps the death of Percy Edward Crutchley in 1940. The first significant house was built on the estate in the late Georgian period in the early 19th century, being a stucco building of two stories with later additions^[1].

It served as the headquarters of the American Ninth Air Force from November 1943 to September 1944. The Crown Estate Commissioners purchased the property in 1945, from the late Philip Hill. The main house was made available to Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II) and her future husband Philip, Duke of Edinburgh for after their marriage in November 1947, but the house burned down on 30 August 1947 before they could occupy it, so they rented Windlesham Moor instead^[2]. In the mid-1960s the site was considered for a new home for Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, but this did not happen.

[edit] Second house

In 1988 the walled garden of some five acres (20,000 m²) was purchased from the Crown Estate Commissioners on behalf of Queen Elizabeth II. The following year construction began on a two-storey red brick house to be the home of the Duke and Duchess of York. The architect responsible was Sir James Dunbar-Nasmith, Balmoral Estate Architect and Professor and Head of the Department of Architecture at Heriot-Watt University. Construction was completed in 1990.

Rear view of Sunninghill house

Front view of Sunninghill house from the drive way

The house has six reception rooms, 12 bedrooms, and 12 bathrooms, and compares in size to the larger country houses built since the Second World War. Sunninghill Park was the first new-built royal home since Bagshot Park was built 1879 for the Duke of Connaught. In the British tabloid press the home was often referred to as 'SouthYork' a play on words for the 'Southfork' estate on the popular 1980's soap opera Dallas

In 2004 the Duke of York, now divorced, moved into Royal Lodge, Windsor, the home of the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, following an £8.5 million refurbishment paid for by the Queen.

In 2007 it was announced that Sunninghill Park had been sold for a reported £15million to an Eastern European.^[3] HM Land Registry records show that the house was sold for £15M - £3M over the asking price - to an offshore trust in the British Virgin Islands. Kenes Rakishev, a 29-year- old Kazakhstan businessman who calls himself a 'friend' of Prince Andrew, has admitted negotiating the deal with the help of his father-in-law Imangali Tasmagambetov, the mayor of Astana; but insists neither of them are the owner.^[4] The British tabloid press presently speculate that the most likely owner is his business partner, Timur Kulibayev, the billionaire son-in-law of the Kazakh president, Nursultan Nazarbayev.^[5]

On 24 February 2009, the Daily Mail newspaper reported that the house has been allowed to fall into an increasingly derelict state.^[5]

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[edit] External links

Frith photo circa 1901 of the first house and great pond

[0] A History of the County of Berkshire: Volume 3 (1923)

[1] The Canberra Times, Thursday 8 January 1948, page 1

[2] The Mail on Sunday, 2007

[3] The Sunday Times, 27 July 2008

[DMail-4] The Daily Mail, 24 February 2009

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Contents

[edit] First house

[edit] Second house

[edit] References

[edit] External links