Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor Moves from Royal Lodge to Temporary Housing

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has officially departed from Royal Lodge located in Windsor and has moved to the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk.

The former royal left his Windsor residence on Monday evening and is currently staying in temporary accommodations on the Sandringham Estate, where renovations are set to take place for what he intends to be his new permanent home. It is anticipated that he will eventually reside at Marsh Farm, which is situated within the same estate.

In October, Buckingham Palace announced that Mountbatten-Windsor would be leaving Royal Lodge, coinciding with the withdrawal of his princely title. The palace confirmed that “formal notice has now been served to surrender the lease.”

Although he is expected to return to Windsor in the upcoming weeks to retrieve his personal items, royal insiders have stated that his official residence is now in Norfolk. He was spotted in Windsor just before his move, seen horseback riding near Royal Lodge and later driving away while greeting onlookers.

This relocation follows a series of controversies regarding the conditions of his lease for Royal Lodge. A report from the National Audit Office unveiled that when he took on the 75-year lease in 2003, he made a substantial upfront payment exceeding £8 million to cover repairs, effectively reducing future rent commitments. This arrangement was based on a theoretical annual rental amount of £260,000.

According to the lease terms, Mountbatten-Windsor could have been entitled to compensation of nearly £488,000 for an early termination of the lease. However, a subsequent report from the Crown Estate submitted to Members of Parliament indicated that the property requires extensive repairs, making it unlikely he will receive any financial compensation.

The Sandringham Estate is personally owned by the King, who will be responsible for covering the expenses related to his brother’s new accommodation. Earlier royal sources had also suggested that the move was postponed until after the New Year to prevent the awkwardness of Mountbatten- Windsor being present at Sandringham during the Christmas season when the Royal Family typically congregates there.

The Sandringham Estate has a rich history, having been acquired in 1862 by the then Prince of Wales, later known as King Edward VII, as a private getaway. The estate covers around 31 square miles, making it roughly comparable in size to Nottingham.

Mountbatten-Windsor continues to face intense public scrutiny over his connections to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Thames Valley Police are presently investigating claims that a woman was sent from the U.S. by Epstein for a sexual encounter with Mountbatten-Windsor at Royal Lodge in 2010. At the time, the woman, who is not British, was in her twenties.

He has denied any form of misconduct and has not provided a comment in response to a recent inquiry. According to the woman’s attorney, Brad Edwards, she alleges that after spending the night at Royal Lodge, she was served tea and given a tour of Buckingham Palace. This situation marks the first instance of an Epstein victim asserting that an encounter occurred at a royal residence.

In 2014, Virginia Giuffre became the first individual to publicly accuse Mountbatten-Windsor of similar offenses, claiming she was trafficked by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell when she was just 17 years old. Mountbatten- Windsor has repeatedly denied these allegations. Giuffre filed a civil lawsuit in the United States in 2021, which was settled in February 2022 with an estimated payout of £12 million. She passed away last year.

The release of millions of pages of documents from the U.S. Department of Justice, including images and emails purportedly linking Mountbatten-Windsor to Epstein following the financier’s guilty plea for soliciting a minor, has revived public interest in this matter. Epstein died in a New York prison cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking.