York Cottage
The York Cottage is (English: a country house cottage ) on the grounds of the royal residence Sandringham House in the English county of Norfolk . The name is derived from the future King George V , who, as Duke of York , received the building from his father as a wedding present and lived in it with his family for 33 years. The house was the birthplace of several members of the royal family and is now used for the administration of the property as an office building and for official apartments.
History and current use
Queen Victoria acquired the property at Sandringham House in 1862 as a country estate for the heir to the throne, Albert Edward . After the building that was originally located there was demolished, today's main building, Sandringham House, was built in neo -Gothic style and with architectural borrowings from the Tudor period by 1870 . Since even this royal palace was occasionally insufficient to accommodate the numerous overnight visitors, the Prince of Wales had a guest house built a quarter of a mile from the main house in the 1870s . This building was initially called Bachelor's Cottage and stylistically based on the Tudor style, although the decorative elements of this rather small house were more reserved.
After the marriage of the Duke of York to Maria von Teck in 1893, the newlyweds received the country house as a gift, which has since been known as York Cottage. After the couple had spent their honeymoon here, they used the house regularly as a country residence. Five of the couple's six children were born here: Albert, who later became Georg VI. , Mary , Henry , George and John . Even after his accession to the throne in 1911, George V preferred the little York Cottage during his stays in Sandringham and left the large main house to his mother Queen Alexandra .
The modest life in York Cottage was rather unusual for the royal family and very different from the representative style that Edward VII maintained in his palaces. The heir to the throne and future King Edward VIII later reported on his childhood experiences in York Cottage to the American Life magazine and described how cramped the royal family with their six children lived in this house. Comparatively few staff took care of the royal residents and the interior design was rather modest. Accordingly, the walls of the father's study were covered with the same red fabric that was customary for the trousers of the French military. The building already had electricity, but only had one bathroom. This was only available to the parents, while the children had to make do with a wash basin.
During his stays at York Cottage George V preferred to hunt. In 1901, in order to have a little more time for this leisure activity, he had all the clocks at Sandringham set half an hour. This Sandringham Time remained until his death in 1936. Today York Cottage serves the administration of Sandringham. This is where the property's switchboard is located and some rooms are used as service apartments for the employees. The house cannot be visited by the public.
literature
- Edward VIII .: The story of the education of a Prince . Appeared in Life magazine on December 8, 1947, pages 115-147.
- Richard Tomlinson: Architecture: Vandalism by royal appointment . Published in The Independent on March 9, 1994.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Edward, Duke of Windsor: A Royal Boyhood . Appeared in Life magazine on December 8, 1947, page 118.
Coordinates: 52 ° 49 ′ 35 ″ N , 0 ° 30 ′ 59 ″ E