A Right Royal Day

5.11.19

There has to be a term you can use for a person who, although votes for and believes in a democracy, still unashamedly at times, has a fascination for royalty!

That’s me!

I confess I love everything royal! Having been thwarted back in 1982 by not being able to visit Balmoral Castle because ‘the lady of the house’ was in residence, I was determined this time to get in!

It was quite a drive from Kenmore, so we set off early. Loch Tay looked beautiful, and the sky was trying hard to stay blue.

The joy of google of course, is that it takes you the ‘quickest’ but not necessarily the fastest route! If that makes sense! We’ve discovered, to our delight, that in Scotland that usually means the road less travelled.

We even passed some ski resorts that sadly, looked like ghost towns. But it won’t be long before they’re buzzing!

Our tour of Balmoral was actually a tour of the grounds and the Ballroom (no photography). The foundation stone for Balmoral Estate (it’s not really a castle), was laid in 1855 replacing a smaller building that wasn’t big enough for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s growing family. The interior was finished 3 years later. Prince Albert had a major role to play in the design, building and decorating of the ‘castle’ but the poor bloke died in 1861, so didn’t really get to enjoy the fruits of his labour.

So if you are an anti-royalist, read no further!

My first glimpse!

As only The Royals would do, we started our tour with a cuppa and some shortbread before heading to the stables.

When she is at Balmoral for the summer, the Queen still rides every day. Without a helmet!

One of the stables had been turned into a museum of sorts, displaying all kinds of Balmoral memorabilia, from pony traps to uniforms, a map and model of the estate, local flora and fauna.

This is the local butcher’s van, obviously from a few years back, not delivering but taking away from the estate! Being privately owned by the Royal Family, Balmoral has to make money to survive, and their local produce of trout, pheasant and venison is a good money maker. Stamp ‘royal’ on it and add the ££££!

Princess Anne used the pony trap to travel to her 2nd wedding at nearby Crathie Church. She got married in Scotland as in those days, divorcees couldn’t get married in the Church of England, even though her mum was the boss!

Not sure where the horse fits in!

This is the meat cooler,

and this is the wine cellar, (not a secret bunker Jen and Grahame)!

It was hard to choose what to photograph. So I just took pics of everything!

The ballroom was the only internal space we saw of the castle. It was currently set up as a display celebrating 200 years since the birth of Queen Victoria. I found this historical pic on Google, and it is very relevant to our tour of the Ballroom. The Ballroom surprisingly, is used for balls! Twice a year the Queen hosts what is called the Ghillies Ball, inviting all the workers on the estate for a right royal knees up. This tradition has been going since the days of Victoria and Albert. Steeped in tradition, the Royal Family are piped into the Ballroom via the staircase at the end of the room, then take their place on a raised podium, to watch the dancing. And yes, the Queen still joins in – probably the Pride of Erin rather than the Highland Fling!

After the tour we were free to wander around on our own, so we took the time to explore a bit further afield. We found a pet cemetery of sorts, with strangely, no corgis!

Not sure what happened to poor ‘Dash’ who I thought was the favourite pooch!

Completely out of sight of the castle was this memorial to Queen Victoria’s second daughter Princess Alice. She was married off at 18 to a poor German prince and had 7 children, one of whom fell out of a window and died. Alice herself succumbed to dyptheria when she was only 35, a month after her baby daughter had died. Prince Phillip is Alice’s great grandson, making him and Lizzie second cousins, twice removed.

The River Dee runs right through the estate and is chock full of salmon.

The castle even has it’s own cricket oval, hosting games between local teams.

I thought the view of the castle from the cricket pitch was the best. It looked like the castle was just sitting in a paddock!

There are lots of houses on the Balmoral estate and I was astounded to learn we could have rented one for a holiday! What a shame I didn’t research better!

This one however is not rented out. Charles and Camilla spent their honeymoon in it.