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00:00:00King Charles III has many residences,
00:00:05grand palaces and castles across the UK.
00:00:10But there's one place that he can really call home.
00:00:14Highgrove, his country house in the Cotswolds.
00:00:18It's not giant Windsor Castle with its manicured lawns
00:00:21and it's not Buckingham Palace with the changing of the guard.
00:00:24It's something far more domestic.
00:00:28It's where he finds peace and serenity almost.
00:00:32It's there that he can truly and utterly relax.
00:00:36Unlike most of his other homes, the King didn't inherit Highgrove.
00:00:41Four decades ago, he decided to buy
00:00:43what was then a fairly unimpressive Georgian manor house,
00:00:47but with huge potential.
00:00:49It was the first home that he could call his own
00:00:52and because it was a bit of a blank canvas,
00:00:55he was able to transmogrify it and make something of his own.
00:01:00What Charles made was an informal home
00:01:03and a spectacular 15-acre garden full of whimsical touches.
00:01:07I always love gardens that have been created by one person
00:01:11because they are invariably a window into the soul
00:01:14and you see the character of the person who created them
00:01:18through the design that they've made.
00:01:21It wasn't just the gardens.
00:01:23The house was transformed inside as well,
00:01:26creating a relaxing space for his new young family to enjoy.
00:01:30Diana, I think, wanted a very homely look.
00:01:33She wanted to make it cosy, light, airy.
00:01:36The boys loved it. They had huge freedom.
00:01:38These go-karts arrived and William and Harry were very excited,
00:01:42but unfortunately we carved up quite a sizable area
00:01:45of the prince's wild meadow.
00:01:47It also became a favourite place to entertain celebrity guests.
00:01:52The Spice Girls were helicoptered into Highgrove,
00:01:55had a lovely spot of afternoon tea and helicoptered back out again.
00:01:59Highgrove is a different kind of royal residence.
00:02:03Now we reveal what it's really like
00:02:05and how and why it's become King Charles' most loved private retreat.
00:02:11CHEERING
00:02:20The king's coronation in May 2023 was without a doubt
00:02:24the biggest moment of his life.
00:02:27It's a hugely important, significant and solemn day.
00:02:31It's the first coronation in British history in 70 years.
00:02:34It's the first coronation in many people's lifetimes.
00:02:37It was a big strain, I think.
00:02:39I mean, the king has said that they enjoyed the day,
00:02:42but I have to say that they looked quite uncomfortable at times.
00:02:46As soon as the festivities were over,
00:02:48the king and queen left London and headed to the countryside
00:02:52for some R&R.
00:02:53Not to one of their great palaces like Windsor or Sandringham,
00:02:57but to the much more modest and cosy Highgrove House.
00:03:01It's just 2.5 hours' drive from London,
00:03:04but a world away from formal royal life.
00:03:07That feeling after that massive thing of the coronation
00:03:12must be the most nicest, best feeling in the world, isn't it?
00:03:16I'm home, I can relax.
00:03:18You can just imagine, can't you, them getting back there,
00:03:21kicking off their shoes, putting their slippers on,
00:03:24pouring a stiff drink and saying,
00:03:27whew, we did it!
00:03:30So where exactly is this well-known laid-back royal residence?
00:03:35Highgrove is in leafy, lovely Gloucestershire.
00:03:38It's a very beautiful part of the country.
00:03:40It's about a mile from the town of Tetbury,
00:03:43which is very beautiful too.
00:03:45It's quite a posh area of England.
00:03:48It's very much the kind of riding, shooting, fishing domain.
00:03:52Charles and his sons last month at his country home in Gloucestershire.
00:03:56The house, which has been Charles's family home
00:03:59for more than 40 years, had relatively humble beginnings.
00:04:03It started life as a fairly unimportant
00:04:06three-storey Georgian country manor house.
00:04:09Built from ochre-grey Cotswold stone,
00:04:12it was originally home to a local landowner,
00:04:15but definitely no one of royal blood or connections.
00:04:19The house has changed a bit over the centuries,
00:04:22but nonetheless it's retained its Georgian structure.
00:04:25Some would say boxy, others would say handsome.
00:04:29Three storeys, rectangular, relatively unostentatious.
00:04:34I say relatively because compared to probably what you live in
00:04:37or I live in, it's a thumping great mansion.
00:04:41Despite its unremarkable early years,
00:04:44Highgrove is now the King and Queen's much-loved private home.
00:04:48Thank you. It's a private party.
00:04:52Security is tight, and they almost never allow photographers inside.
00:04:57But these images from just before the then Prince of Wales moved in
00:05:01provide a rare peek at what has become their inner sanctum.
00:05:05The front door opens into a large hallway,
00:05:08complete with marble fireplace,
00:05:10that has doors on both sides leading to the reception rooms.
00:05:14It's got four reception rooms in the ground floor of the house,
00:05:18the dining room, the kind of living room, drawing room,
00:05:21if you will, Charles' study, and the library.
00:05:24It also has this really incredible fireplace,
00:05:27which has dolphins carved into it in the drawing room.
00:05:31So a house designed to entertain, but not so big
00:05:35it costs a fortune to maintain.
00:05:38You don't have these giant kind of Blenheim Palace-style ballrooms, etc,
00:05:44that make you feel like you're rattling around.
00:05:47But what makes Highgrove really stand out
00:05:50is the incredible transformation it has undergone in the last four decades,
00:05:54particularly the creation of over 15 acres of stunning gardens,
00:05:59planned and nurtured by King Charles himself.
00:06:02Highgrove is an idyllic, amazing place.
00:06:05There's amazing variety.
00:06:07There's incredible trees.
00:06:09There's a sundial garden.
00:06:12There's a walled garden.
00:06:15There's orchards.
00:06:18There's a time walk, which the prince laid himself personally digging it up.
00:06:23There's incredible topiary connecting it.
00:06:27I think that it's one of the great gardens established
00:06:30in the last 50, 60 years.
00:06:33Those who are lucky enough to have been invited
00:06:36through Highgrove's large front door
00:06:38say the influence of the garden can be felt inside too.
00:06:42The house is very elegant inside.
00:06:44The windows are almost always open because he's a great fresh air fiend.
00:06:48And the house bleeds out, if you like, into the garden.
00:06:51There's no sort of definable line where one ends and the other begins,
00:06:54and I think that's rather nice.
00:06:56It just feels very homely, very relaxed, very informal,
00:07:00not too grand, not austere.
00:07:03This is not Buckingham Palace.
00:07:05This is not gold on the ceiling.
00:07:07This is not priceless veneers up on the wall
00:07:09and gold furniture that you can't sit on
00:07:11because it's worth, you know, 500 million, trillion, squillion pounds.
00:07:14This is very much a country home where, you know,
00:07:17Charles and Camilla had dogs,
00:07:19the dogs can run around, dog baskets everywhere.
00:07:22It's friendly. It's not ostentatious.
00:07:25You walk into the old Highgrove
00:07:27and you'll see his bits and bobs in a wicker basket.
00:07:29There are wicker baskets that Charles can just pick up on his gardening shears
00:07:33just by the front door, that very grand front door,
00:07:35so that he can just pick up and go straight into the gardens.
00:07:38Upstairs, the house has about nine bedrooms and eight bathrooms.
00:07:43On the first floor, there are four bedrooms,
00:07:45one for Charles, one for Camilla,
00:07:47and each kind of suite of bedrooms comprises a bedroom,
00:07:49a dressing room and a bathroom.
00:07:51There are two main guest rooms,
00:07:54the blue room and the green room,
00:07:56because that's their colour scheme.
00:07:58And then on the second floor, it used to be the nursery
00:08:00for William and Harry and for the nannies who would look after them,
00:08:04but now, obviously, William and Harry are grown-ups,
00:08:06so they're converted into other guest rooms.
00:08:09There's much more to Highgrove than just the house and gardens.
00:08:12There's a working farm and lots of space for the king's beloved horses.
00:08:20He obviously has a huge love of horses.
00:08:23Highgrove had its own polo team,
00:08:25of which Prince Charles, as he was then Prince Harry,
00:08:28and Prince William were a member, and they stabled their horses there.
00:08:32A beautiful stable block with lovely horses' heads
00:08:35hanging over the doors, you just want to go and give them a carrot.
00:08:38Some lovely stone barns there.
00:08:41It is a collection of all sorts of buildings,
00:08:44and they've grown over the years, really.
00:08:47The prince has added the orchard room, built in 1998,
00:08:50and that's a real function room and somewhere he can invite
00:08:53all sorts of people and have events,
00:08:56just not being in the house itself,
00:08:58but you're at Highgrove all the same.
00:09:03There's also an outdoor swimming pool,
00:09:05a 1981 wedding present from the British Army,
00:09:08and accommodation for the royal staff who live on the property.
00:09:12They have cottages that have been used by staff throughout the years,
00:09:16really pretty cottages with white picket fences,
00:09:20but also a more modern kind of one-storey building
00:09:23that staff have used as well.
00:09:26Only the family's police protection officers sleep in the house itself.
00:09:31The police room, as we called it, was very much on the top of the house,
00:09:35butting on to the nursery.
00:09:37I always enjoyed staying there, this country house,
00:09:39with a view across the Glossier countryside.
00:09:41The in-house police protection is only one of the many security measures
00:09:46protecting the royals at Highgrove.
00:09:48This is no longer an ordinary country house.
00:09:52What made it even safer, really, was the resident police post
00:09:56that was actually situated almost outside the back door.
00:09:59There's a police station on the grounds,
00:10:01there's a no-fly zone over Highgrove.
00:10:04It was added to a list of places that is illegal to trespass.
00:10:07And over the decades, the King's Garden has matured,
00:10:11overlaying the necessary security with a green veil of privacy.
00:10:16What I think is the most interesting thing about Highgrove House
00:10:19is that it has a steel panic room in it.
00:10:22You have things like chemical toilets, long-lasting food,
00:10:26there's medicines, all kinds of things in there.
00:10:28There's quite a lot in it, including the blood types of Camilla and Charles.
00:10:33So if something goes awry, you know,
00:10:35they've got life-sustaining equipment inside this panic box.
00:10:39Because in the 80s, I think the fear was that there would be a risk
00:10:42of kidnap of the two young princes.
00:10:44So, ostensibly, that is why this room was built.
00:10:47William and Harry knew of its existence, they knew what it was for,
00:10:51and they knew that in the event of something going wrong,
00:10:53they knew exactly what to do, as indeed we did.
00:10:56What I will say is that, thankfully, we never had to use it.
00:11:00Actually, someone did get locked behind Highgrove's steel doors once,
00:11:04but not because of a security threat.
00:11:07Well, we'll see. I'm feeling energised.
00:11:09By all accounts, the only time it's been used was by Rory Stewart,
00:11:12you know, who was the Conservative MP
00:11:15and once tutor to Princes Harry and William,
00:11:18but he apparently once got trapped in it.
00:11:21I'm not sure how that happened.
00:11:23The maths just got so boring, they decided to all play a game,
00:11:26but he has actually been locked in the panic room.
00:11:29He has been rescued, though.
00:11:31Despite the precautions,
00:11:33there have been a few security breaches at Highgrove.
00:11:37There were some drunk Welshmen who managed to climb over one of the walls
00:11:41and were marauding around in the grouse.
00:11:47I believe that they weren't near enough,
00:11:50the actual house, to be convicted of trespass.
00:11:53I think they just got a warning.
00:11:55Since then, the rules have been tightened up
00:11:57and I think that if you do venture on the property,
00:11:59you can be nicked, so I recommend you stay away.
00:12:04I think the security breach, for me, that's a little bit more sinister,
00:12:07was a man who was discovered within 100 feet of the house
00:12:10with a sack and a pitchfork.
00:12:12Now, he said that he was looking for scrap metal,
00:12:15but it was 4am and, more worryingly,
00:12:18King Charles and Camilla were asleep in the house, they were in residence.
00:12:22That's alarming, but, you know, thankfully, that person was detained.
00:12:26I mean, that's the whole point about security.
00:12:29It may well have been breached,
00:12:31but as long as it doesn't achieve the end result,
00:12:34the injury of whoever's inside, then the security has worked.
00:12:37Thankfully, the only people who have got inside the building
00:12:41have been invited guests, including plenty of famous names.
00:12:46They often bring a gift for their host,
00:12:48and what better than a little something for the garden?
00:12:51You think, what on earth can I give the King,
00:12:53who must have everything he wants?
00:12:55But, obviously, the garden's an easy turning point,
00:12:58so Elton John, I think, gave him an Indian bean tree, a golden form.
00:13:02Pierce Brosnan, in his Bond era, gave the King a magnolia tree
00:13:07and Sting gifted the King hundreds of bulbs for his wildflower meadow.
00:13:13It's not just celebrities who are welcomed
00:13:16inside the stone walls of the Highgrove Estate.
00:13:19Since 1996, when the King decided to open
00:13:22his very private garden to the public,
00:13:2540,000 paying visitors come every year
00:13:28for a guided tour of the grounds.
00:13:3140,000 is an awful lot.
00:13:33That's a heck of a lot of people to come to your home,
00:13:36and I really admire the King for opening up like that.
00:13:39It means a lot to him to show it off,
00:13:41and I'll tell you, people get such pleasure from it.
00:13:44It shows, I think, great generosity of spirit
00:13:47that you have a place which is very precious to you,
00:13:50which is your private sanctuary in the largest form,
00:13:54to open it up and share it.
00:13:58But gardens are to be shared.
00:14:00You can't make a beautiful garden,
00:14:02shut the gates and say nobody's looking at it.
00:14:05Access to the gardens costs £34.50,
00:14:08or £98 if you fancy a champagne tea in the orchard room afterwards.
00:14:12The money, along with sales from the Highgrove shop
00:14:15and other garden events, goes to the King's Foundation charity.
00:14:20I'm here as an ambassador for the Prince's Foundation,
00:14:23and basically we're celebrating Windrush, NHS,
00:14:26and just anybody who's 75,
00:14:27or people who've done stuff in the community.
00:14:29The tour's popularity is all the more extraordinary
00:14:32when you realise that just over 40 years ago,
00:14:35when the then Prince Charles started to put his stamp on Highgrove,
00:14:39there was no garden to speak of.
00:14:41He's totally transformed it.
00:14:43He's made it one of the most spectacularly presented gardens in the kingdom.
00:14:51It might be something of a jewel in the crown these days,
00:14:54but in 1980, Highgrove was a fairly uninteresting country house
00:14:58with no previous royal owners.
00:15:01So how did Charles end up buying this unlikely property,
00:15:05and why was the purchase so controversial?
00:15:25In the late 1970s, Prince Charles was the world's most eligible bachelor,
00:15:30an athletic, adventure-loving prince
00:15:33who turned heads wherever he travelled.
00:15:41It looks very good.
00:15:42It takes you back.
00:15:44He was the kind of playboy prince.
00:15:46There were lots of pictures of him associated with good-looking women.
00:15:50He was often seen in his polo outfit.
00:15:53But by early 1980, the prince was 31 years old and ready to settle down.
00:15:59He had marriage on his mind,
00:16:01but before he picked a wife, he needed to find a home.
00:16:05As heir to the throne,
00:16:07he had the rights to the stunning Chevening House in Kent,
00:16:11a 115-room Palladian mansion, but he barely used it.
00:16:15It was kind of in the wrong direction from London
00:16:18through lots of suburban traffic.
00:16:20Another strike against Chevening was that this historic house
00:16:24and its ornate gardens were overseen by a board of trustees.
00:16:28In other words, even if you're the Prince of Wales,
00:16:32you don't have free reign over your mansion in Kent.
00:16:36And this bothered Charles, who anyway felt,
00:16:40especially in the late 70s, that he wasn't master of his own house.
00:16:46He was the Prince of Wales under the Queen
00:16:49with a pretty challenging father in Philip.
00:16:52You know, a lot of people sort of telling him what to do.
00:16:55Last year, Prince Charles renounced his claim on Chevening.
00:16:59Instead, he asked his staff at the Duchy of Cornwall,
00:17:02a private royal estate that provides an income to the heir to the throne,
00:17:06to find him somewhere more suitable.
00:17:08The Duchy of Cornwall owns land and properties
00:17:11all across the country, actually, not just in Cornwall,
00:17:14across 23 counties up and down the United Kingdom.
00:17:18The Duchy has these enormous estates,
00:17:21like large amounts of Dartmoor, large amounts of the West Country,
00:17:24bits of the Oval, which are able to make profit from the land.
00:17:30The Prince asked his team at the Duchy
00:17:33to look for a house west of London in Gloucestershire,
00:17:36an area he already knew and loved.
00:17:39One of the most wonderful counties in England,
00:17:42very easy to get to from London, easy to get to from Wales,
00:17:46just a marvellous, idyllic place.
00:17:49So this was really a part of England that spoke to Charles
00:17:52in a way that Kent didn't.
00:17:54There was his love of horses,
00:17:56there was his love of agriculture, of biodiversity,
00:18:00and his friend group.
00:18:02They were all based in Gloucestershire, his sister Anne in Gatcombe,
00:18:05which was a wedding gift to her and her husband.
00:18:08His head steward soon spotted an advertisement for Highgrove.
00:18:12The property wasn't very grand, but it included 347 acres of land,
00:18:17woodland and a small farm,
00:18:19situated a mile south-west of picturesque Tetbury.
00:18:23When Prince Charles is shown the listing for Highgrove,
00:18:26it's exactly what he's looking for.
00:18:28It's a smaller country house, it has nine bedrooms.
00:18:32It also has substantial land, but not cultivated or curated land.
00:18:37So it is something that he would be able to mould
00:18:40into the kind of estate and farm and home that he wants to.
00:18:44The listing and its potential got the Prince's attention.
00:18:48He wanted to know more about Highgrove.
00:18:50This wasn't a typical royal property with a long family history.
00:18:54There was no kind of, you know, Queen Victoria had a bath here,
00:18:58King George died there.
00:18:59There was none of that ghosts of Christmas past, if you like.
00:19:03Highgrove was built in 1796-98, the height of the Georgian era,
00:19:09for a man with the unusual name of John Paul Paul.
00:19:13The Pauls were of Huguenot descent.
00:19:15They have the land by the late Georgian period,
00:19:18but in order to afford the building of the house,
00:19:22you need a good marriage, which is what John Paul Paul achieves,
00:19:26hence you get the commission of Highgrove in the late 1790s.
00:19:30It's believed Highgrove was built by Anthony Keck,
00:19:33a popular local Mason architect
00:19:35who designed lots of similar houses in the local area.
00:19:39It's OK, don't go to Wikipedia if you haven't heard of him.
00:19:42Lots of people haven't. He was local.
00:19:44He predominantly designed local houses, about 50 of them.
00:19:49He's a very safe pair of hands,
00:19:51and when he does a good job for one family building their home,
00:19:54they recommend him to another family and so on and so on.
00:19:57At Highgrove, Keck created an elegant but simple country manor house
00:20:02with a distinctive Venetian arched window above the front door.
00:20:06Although modest by royal standards,
00:20:08it would have been an impressive home for a country gentleman in his family,
00:20:12large enough to host balls and entertain the local gentry.
00:20:18This was a house that spoke to individuals
00:20:22who were part of the great and the good,
00:20:25not the top rung of aristocracy.
00:20:27They were part of that class that looks after the community,
00:20:32magistrates, justice of the peace, so forth.
00:20:35The events they would have put on, the balls they would have held,
00:20:40would have been high points in the local calendar.
00:20:43The house continued to play its part
00:20:45in the life of the county set for nearly a century,
00:20:48until in 1893, a disastrous fire gutted the interiors
00:20:52and caused some of the building to collapse.
00:20:55After the 1893 fire, major restoration work needs done for Highgrove.
00:21:00The astronomical sum of £6,000 is spent on the renovations.
00:21:05Unfortunately, the owner doesn't quite get his money's worth.
00:21:09There's quite a shoddy refurb that goes on.
00:21:12There's this sort of balustrade around the top that's solid and uncomely.
00:21:17I think that later, Charles refers to it as austere,
00:21:21or a word to that effect.
00:21:23Highgrove seemed destined to become
00:21:26an increasingly unimportant country seat until the 1960s,
00:21:30when it was sold for £89,000 to a prominent political family.
00:21:35Highgrove takes a bit of a step up
00:21:38in the social hierarchy of country houses
00:21:40when it's bought by a trust of the Macmillan family.
00:21:43It's bought from Maurice Macmillan,
00:21:45who is a son of the Tory Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.
00:21:48Good evening.
00:21:49This afternoon, the Queen did me the great honour
00:21:52to ask me to form a government.
00:21:54Like his father, Maurice Macmillan was a Conservative MP
00:21:58and would later serve as a Cabinet Minister.
00:22:01The family's importance meant the house was now visited
00:22:04by some very prestigious guests, including its future owner's mother.
00:22:09During Maurice Macmillan's time at Highgrove,
00:22:12some of his visitors included Queen Elizabeth II and the Queen Mother.
00:22:16And we know this from a throwaway comment
00:22:18that's made by the Macmillan family's nanny years later
00:22:21to the then Prince Charles.
00:22:23That the fender Prince Charles was leaning on
00:22:25had also been sat on by his mother.
00:22:27And his grandmother, the late Queen Mother.
00:22:30Under the Macmillans, Highgrove wasn't just home
00:22:33to a British Prime Minister's son,
00:22:35it also housed the son of an American President.
00:22:38It speaks to the almost celebrity
00:22:41that the house acquires under the Macmillans,
00:22:44that in 1975, for a year,
00:22:48General Elliot Roosevelt,
00:22:51that is, incidentally, the son of the famous President Roosevelt,
00:22:57who was Churchill's ally during World War II.
00:23:00He comes to live in Highgrove.
00:23:03Roosevelt was an author who lived in England
00:23:06and the Macmillans rented Highgrove to him for that year.
00:23:10Unfortunately, it wasn't just the great and the good
00:23:13who became aware of Highgrove in the 1970s.
00:23:16What was the first idea of the Raiders?
00:23:19Three men armed, brandishing revolvers, or pistols rather,
00:23:23burst into the room...
00:23:25There is a spate of country house robberies in the 1970s
00:23:28and in many cases, these country houses have relied
00:23:31on the invisible walls of the class system keeping people out.
00:23:35As that declines in the 1970s,
00:23:37houses like Highgrove are hopelessly unprotected
00:23:41for when it comes to a crime spree.
00:23:44In 1976, thieves broke into Highgrove
00:23:47and made off with two artworks, a carriage clock
00:23:50and some small pieces of silver.
00:23:52But this wasn't the first time the house had been raided.
00:23:55We know that because the Macmillans joke,
00:23:57oh, well, they were probably looking for the silver
00:23:59but they didn't find it because that was taken in the first burglary.
00:24:02So it shows you just how frequent these robberies were in the 1970s
00:24:05and how the landed classes and the aristocracy
00:24:07still weren't really catching up
00:24:09to how they needed to improve their security systems.
00:24:12It wasn't just the house's security system that needed an update.
00:24:16By the time the Macmillans put it on the market in 1980,
00:24:19Highgrove and its gardens were somewhat neglected.
00:24:23But they didn't do much with the house.
00:24:25They weren't interested in gardening.
00:24:27When I first saw Highgrove, I was sort of 13 or 14 years old,
00:24:32it was just the lovely rambling country house,
00:24:35the kitchen with the sort of aga flagstone floors.
00:24:38There was nothing that you could describe as an impressive garden.
00:24:42Even me, aged 13, 14, you know,
00:24:44you realise that they weren't out deadheading the roses every night.
00:24:48There probably weren't any roses to deadhead.
00:24:51It was just an all-Soran garden that you sort of blinked on passing.
00:24:55Despite this, when Charles visited in early 1980,
00:24:58he fell in love with the place.
00:25:00It was sort of nice room proportions,
00:25:03lovely vistas, including the spire of Tetbury Church.
00:25:07He loved the surrounding wood pastures,
00:25:10the sort of trees in the parkland.
00:25:12But I think primarily it was the fact
00:25:16that he could do almost anything with it.
00:25:19He could really make the house look something special
00:25:22with a bit of imagination.
00:25:24He could really do something with the garden.
00:25:26He could carve out a home that he wanted.
00:25:30Charles also fell for Paddy Whiteland,
00:25:33the irreverent Irish groom who had been running the estate for many years.
00:25:37He was a survivor of the Second World War.
00:25:41He was an Irishman who just captured the king's heart straightaway.
00:25:47He understood the way in which Highgrove worked
00:25:50and what you want when you move into a house like that,
00:25:53which is more than a house, it's an estate and a business and a farm.
00:25:56You need continuity.
00:25:57You can't put everything up by the roots straightaway.
00:26:00And Charles, who can't live there full-time
00:26:02because he's the Prince of Wales,
00:26:04needs someone he can rely on and trust,
00:26:06someone who'll talk truth to power, which, by the way, Paddy did.
00:26:09And when he saw Prince Charles, I think on one of those first occasions,
00:26:12Charles, who sometimes rode as an amateur at races,
00:26:15he said, I saw yous ride at Chepstowty the other day.
00:26:18I thought you was going to fall off by the way your legs was flapping.
00:26:23Prince Charles was sold.
00:26:25He asked the Duchy to put an offer in for Highgrove.
00:26:28They exchanged contracts on the 29th of September, 1980,
00:26:33which is a traditional day when farms change hands.
00:26:36For £865,000, Highgrove now belonged to the Duchy of Cornwall,
00:26:42with Prince Charles named resident for life.
00:26:45To raise the money for Highgrove, the Duchy liquidated some assets.
00:26:48They sold three other country properties that they had
00:26:51and various agricultural properties.
00:26:53In that way, funds were generated to purchase Highgrove
00:26:56without having to have any recourse to the public purse.
00:26:59Still, the purchase was controversial.
00:27:01Chevening Trust had already spent £1 million
00:27:04to prepare that property for the Prince.
00:27:07Now the Duchy was spending more money on a new home for Charles.
00:27:11He has the right to take a view and so have we.
00:27:14One of the major critics of the Highgrove purchase
00:27:17was the Labour MP for Wood Green, Reg Race,
00:27:20who described it as an outrage that Highgrove had been purchased,
00:27:24even with Duchy money, at the time it had been,
00:27:27given the Prime Minister's policies towards cutting back public spending,
00:27:31because Highgrove would require a significant amount of public money
00:27:34to make it safe and also to provide the around-the-clock police protection
00:27:38that it would henceforth require.
00:27:40And in response, a spokesperson at the Duchy of Cornwall says,
00:27:43well, you know, he only has apartments in Buckingham Palace
00:27:46and in Windsor Castle.
00:27:48Well, at 31, you want a place of your own.
00:27:51But there was possibly another reason Charles wanted to buy Highgrove.
00:27:55What's telling about the purchase of Highgrove
00:27:57is that rather than Charles getting in there with a paintbrush
00:28:00and stipulating how he wants it to be decorated,
00:28:03he says, Magnolia, whitewash it.
00:28:07Leave the walls as a blank canvas.
00:28:09There's not really a great stamp of his personality
00:28:12and that leads to speculation that he thinks
00:28:15that soon there is going to be a woman at his side,
00:28:18a wife, who will want to redecorate Highgrove as she sees fit.
00:28:22Prince Charles was about to introduce his new girlfriend
00:28:25to the house of his dreams,
00:28:27but would she share his vision for the humble country house?
00:28:39In February 1981,
00:28:41Highgrove got a special mention
00:28:43in Prince Charles and Lady Diana's engagement announcement.
00:28:47Are you planning... You must be planning for the future.
00:28:50Where are you going to live, that sort of thing?
00:28:52I mean, I've got this house in Gloucestershire
00:28:55that I acquired last year.
00:28:58There's a lot to be done.
00:29:00It's going to be marvellous to have somebody to help sort it out.
00:29:04Four months earlier, Charles had taken Diana to Highgrove
00:29:08and made a special request of his then-girlfriend.
00:29:11He asked her to mastermind the decoration, really.
00:29:14She was a little taken aback, actually,
00:29:16because we weren't even engaged
00:29:18and I thought it was really rather improper to ask me to do this,
00:29:21but he clearly liked my taste.
00:29:23Returning to a traditional royal decorator
00:29:25to help her with Highgrove,
00:29:27Diana hired a South African interior designer named Dudley Poplak.
00:29:31Dudley Poplak's style was really a light-hearted take
00:29:35on grand English country house style
00:29:37with a fresh palette of colours, greens, yellows, whites,
00:29:41that would really have brought the interiors of Highgrove to life.
00:29:45Diana, I think, wanted a very homely look.
00:29:48She wasn't looking for a regal residence.
00:29:51She wanted to make it cosy, light, airy.
00:29:54It was quite fresh.
00:29:56It had accents of lime and lemon, yellow walls.
00:29:59It was comfortable sofas, lots of scatter cushions.
00:30:02Charles is a very accomplished artist, actually,
00:30:04so there's lots of paintings of his on the wall.
00:30:07Only one public photograph has ever been released
00:30:10from inside Highgrove after it was decorated,
00:30:13showing a small corner of the sitting room.
00:30:16This very much speaks to the ideas of privacy
00:30:19that Highgrove's always been invested with
00:30:21since the Prince of Wales has taken over ownership.
00:30:24But we do have images of Kensington Palace
00:30:27at this time in the 1980s
00:30:30when it was the same interior designer, Dudley Poplak,
00:30:34and overseen by the same princess, Diana.
00:30:37And if you look at those pictures,
00:30:39it speaks to the 1980s in so many ways.
00:30:42OTT, frills, chintzy, bright colours, scatter cushions.
00:30:48Not only is no expense spared,
00:30:51but also this isn't about restful, beige, tasteful interiors.
00:30:56As much as the Princess of Wales liked frills and ruffles in her clothing,
00:31:01she also clearly liked it,
00:31:03judging by the interiors of Kensington Palace,
00:31:05and they feature very highly in the curtain treatments in particular.
00:31:09In her 20s, when she is helping design Highgrove in Kensington Palace,
00:31:15she's a kid, more or less.
00:31:17And as a result, the interiors are invested with a playfulness
00:31:20that wouldn't otherwise be associated with royal palaces.
00:31:24It's fresh, it's eye-catching, and it's fun.
00:31:30While Princess Diana took charge of decorating inside,
00:31:34Prince Charles focused on the huge task of creating his dream garden.
00:31:38With Highgrove, that was the king's chance to put his own stamp
00:31:42right from the beginning on the garden.
00:31:44It was, to all intents and purposes, a pretty blank canvas.
00:31:47Charles was starting from scratch.
00:31:50In his early 30s, he had never really gardened before.
00:31:53He wasn't that interested or knowledgeable about gardening.
00:31:56As a young man growing up, he just sort of enjoyed being in gardens,
00:32:00and I think he particularly enjoyed his grandmother,
00:32:03the Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother's gardens,
00:32:05especially at the Castle of May, at Birkhall and at Royal Lodge.
00:32:10But none of those gardens were particularly innovative.
00:32:13Isn't it delicious? Absolutely lovely.
00:32:16So there must have been something inside of him,
00:32:19a sort of itch for creativity.
00:32:21Kind people did do a little digging and snap-snipping
00:32:25and all that sort of thing.
00:32:27Yes, they were all very helpful.
00:32:29It is extraordinary, because although the Queen Mother
00:32:32was known to love her gardens, you don't imagine
00:32:35that she was passionately, actively gardening
00:32:38the way King Charles has done since buying Highgrove.
00:32:41So obviously something triggered in him.
00:32:45Charles had big ambitions and lots of ideas,
00:32:48and he had access to the finest gardeners in the country
00:32:51to help him get started.
00:32:53When you're the Prince of Wales, you can call in quite a lot of favours,
00:32:57you can ask people for their expertise, and that's what the Prince did.
00:33:01In the early years, Lady Salisbury from Hatfield House
00:33:05gave him a lot of valuable advice.
00:33:08Molly Salisbury was able to transform and put her ideas into practice,
00:33:12famously Hatfield in Hertfordshire.
00:33:15And she was an early believer in the organic movement,
00:33:20in not doing as was the fashion in the middle of the last century,
00:33:24which was to spray everything with pesticides and herbicides
00:33:28and rigidly control things.
00:33:30Although controversial at the time, the Prince was determined
00:33:34that the Highgrove Gardens would follow her example
00:33:37and nurture nature, not fight it with chemicals.
00:33:40In the 1980s, it was considered sort of madness
00:33:43that you would garden organically, and he was made fun of
00:33:47when he said in an interview that he spoke to his plants
00:33:50and people thought, no, this isn't centric.
00:33:53One of the first areas that Charles transformed
00:33:56was the run-down ward kitchen garden.
00:33:59It needed a bit of love, it needed a bit of TLC.
00:34:03Shortly before he'd bought it, it had been used as a piggery, I think,
00:34:06but he felt madly in love with it from the start.
00:34:10I mean, he's made it a work of great beauty
00:34:13as well as a work which gives you great produce.
00:34:16I mean, chefs would wander along to this ward garden
00:34:19and certainly pick produce for the Prince,
00:34:21who was very insistent on eating his own produce.
00:34:25Another early change Charles made to the garden
00:34:28was planting more than half a kilometre of yew hedges
00:34:31around the perimeter.
00:34:33The Prince is normally very open,
00:34:35but on this occasion he insisted that it should be a very private affair,
00:34:39no cameras inside.
00:34:41When they first moved there,
00:34:43they were the most photographed couple in the world,
00:34:46and the paparazzi used to hunker up by the drive
00:34:49and then you could see right through to the garden,
00:34:52it wasn't a very private space,
00:34:54and so it was imperative to get some good hedges growing pretty fast
00:34:58to give them that much-needed privacy.
00:35:01Charles began a massive programme of tree planting across the estate.
00:35:05From the start, he was incredibly hands-on,
00:35:08particularly about the gardens,
00:35:10and he would stand on the front doorstep with a megaphone,
00:35:13directing operations like a film director.
00:35:16Highgrove was beginning to take shape as the weekend home
00:35:20for the Prince and Princess's growing family.
00:35:23In the early days, they were actually quite happy at Highgrove.
00:35:26It was their family home with their two young boys.
00:35:30The boys loved it.
00:35:32They had huge freedom when they were very little.
00:35:35Climbing frames in the garden,
00:35:37they dressed up in their little army uniforms.
00:35:40There was a ball pit.
00:35:42The ball pit they had, or Diana had, installed into one of the outbuildings,
00:35:45I'm going to say a ball pit, this was a massive hole
00:35:48of 5 metres by 2 metres and a metre high
00:35:51of those red multi-coloured plastic balls that you were thrown into.
00:35:55And it didn't matter who you were, you were thrown in at some point.
00:35:58Diana was very much involved in that
00:36:00and would encourage William to push us in or push them in.
00:36:03And you absolutely have this idea of them playing and Diana playing with them
00:36:07and very much a freedom that they could enjoy.
00:36:10They had pets, they had guinea pigs, they had hamsters,
00:36:13they of course had horses.
00:36:15I mean, it's a paradise in many respects.
00:36:17The kids even had their own toy Aston Martin
00:36:20with leather interiors and a cassette player at no expense spared.
00:36:23So they had their own go-karting track.
00:36:26Diana herself enjoyed go-karting.
00:36:28These go-karts arrived and William and Harry were very excited,
00:36:31invited three or four of their friends across.
00:36:33And William had this sort of Just William way,
00:36:36he'd actually mapped out the circuit around Highgrave
00:36:40where this Highgrave Grand Prix was about to take place.
00:36:44But unfortunately, we carved up quite a sizeable area
00:36:48of the Prince's Wild Meadow and we repaired it.
00:36:52It was fun, you know, it worked.
00:36:54The Wildflower Meadow, an area of natural planting near the house,
00:36:58was one of the first changes Charles made to the Highgrave Gardens.
00:37:02It's an amazing piece of creativity.
00:37:05It's full of butterflies and hoverflies and moths and bees and birds.
00:37:12It is a pleasure being in Highgrave
00:37:15and standing in a wildflower meadow,
00:37:17a path that goes through a wildflower meadow
00:37:19with alliums and narcissi and tulips and things coming through,
00:37:23which is wild and woolly, and then wildflowers in summer.
00:37:26It exudes passion and joy in gardening.
00:37:31As Highgrave's gardens became more and more beautiful,
00:37:34the austere grey façade of the house,
00:37:36particularly the boxy balustrade built after the 1890s fire,
00:37:40began to stick out like a sore thumb.
00:37:43Charles was never happy with the exterior
00:37:46and Charles likes to fiddle, so in 1987,
00:37:49he had the idea, and used a graphic designer friend to implement it,
00:37:54of putting a pediment like this with a window
00:37:58and then ionic columns at the top of the roof line
00:38:02and four urns on the corner.
00:38:05He made all sorts of quite sympathetic, modest interventions to the house
00:38:11and he added an entire new extension,
00:38:14which gave him an opportunity to have a larger reception room
00:38:17and a study for his private secretary.
00:38:19With these renovations, Prince Charles helps make Highgrove
00:38:23an elegant royal residence in the way, of course, it had never been before.
00:38:27However, Highgrove was changing in more ways than one.
00:38:31Highgrove was renovated in 1987.
00:38:34Of course, this coincided with the breakdown of Charles and Diana's relationship,
00:38:38so we're really seeing Highgrove move from a family house
00:38:41with Diana and Charles to more of Charles's domain.
00:38:46Prince Charles began to spend more time at Highgrove,
00:38:49not just the weekends, but during the week as well.
00:38:53I mean, he adored it.
00:38:55That was everything that he'd made from the purchase from Macmillan
00:38:59way in the early 80s, and so, in that sense,
00:39:02it in a way reverted back to him personally.
00:39:05Highgrove became Prince Charles's main home
00:39:08and it soon became clear more radical changes were on the way.
00:39:16By the early 1990s, it was becoming clear that Highgrove
00:39:20was more than Prince Charles's country home.
00:39:23It was his passion project, particularly the gardens.
00:39:27In the early 90s, I was invited to tea with Prince Charles at Highgrove.
00:39:33The prince was really keen to show me his time walk,
00:39:36something I'd never heard of.
00:39:38I thought, what on earth is he going to show me?
00:39:40What is he going to show me?
00:39:42Something I'd never heard of.
00:39:43I thought, what on earth is he going to show me?
00:39:45What does he mean?
00:39:46And he led me outside to the pathway that leads out the back of the house
00:39:50and he said the idea is he planted lots of herbs along this pathway
00:39:54and as you walk and you tread on some of them,
00:39:57the fragrance comes up and it is very beautiful.
00:40:00You can smell these delicious herbs as you walk along.
00:40:04I remember him saying that this was always an ambition of his,
00:40:07that he wanted to walk on this time walk
00:40:10to get this scent of thyme and the herbs.
00:40:12I mean, this was classic Prince of Wales.
00:40:15He would give William and Harry a trowel or a fork
00:40:18and I remember these trays of variegated thymes.
00:40:22He instructing William how to plant within the sort of cracks
00:40:25of the crazy paving that led from the house
00:40:28on a fair journey down the garden.
00:40:31The time walk runs between a row of golden yews
00:40:34that Charles was advised to remove when he first moved in.
00:40:38The golden yew was thought to be a wee bit naff.
00:40:41But the prince had always loved topiary
00:40:44and had a vision for this unfashionable row of yellow domes.
00:40:48He was told that it wasn't a good idea
00:40:50to have these golden yews down the time walk.
00:40:52Well, he flew in the face of that and said,
00:40:54no, I like them, I'm going to make topiary shapes
00:40:56and he allowed his gardeners to decide what shapes they wanted to do.
00:41:00And it was a bit like a Mad Hatter's tea party.
00:41:03They could just choose any shapes they wanted.
00:41:06If they look like sort of igloos or a big fat melon
00:41:10or crowns, sort of peculiar, almost just as crown,
00:41:14they're most unusual.
00:41:16So the whole thing, you think, gosh,
00:41:18I've never seen anything like this before.
00:41:20But it was very special.
00:41:22But the garden was more than something beautiful to look at.
00:41:25It was a chance for the prince to put his principles into practice.
00:41:29Never let it be said that the prince is straight down the line ordinary.
00:41:34He's quite extraordinary in lots of ways.
00:41:36And one thing I wasn't expecting to see at Highgrove
00:41:39was how his sewage system worked.
00:41:42Again, he was very proud of the fact that it is a reedbed system.
00:41:47The prince's sewage garden uses a series of bark pits, reeds and willows
00:41:52to process all the waste water from Highgrove.
00:41:55They just slowly filter the water through several different levels
00:41:59and it just takes out all the nitrates and things like that.
00:42:03The butler at the time says that the Prince of Wales
00:42:06wrote a memo to him saying,
00:42:08could you please ask guests not to put tampons and condoms down the loo
00:42:12as it's clogging my reedbeds.
00:42:14So there's a rather graphic vision,
00:42:16but it shows how complete the king was
00:42:20in terms of implementing his ideas.
00:42:22The prince's nature-first principles at Highgrove
00:42:25went way beyond the garden.
00:42:27Highgrove is not just a garden, it's also a farm,
00:42:30which in 1985 Prince Charles started the process
00:42:33of converting to fully organic methods of farming.
00:42:37After 11 years of farming organically at Highgrove,
00:42:41during which time we have learned a great deal,
00:42:44notably from our mistakes,
00:42:46the farm really has, I think, begun to respond to the treatment
00:42:50and the system is clearly working in practice.
00:42:53The farm is profitable
00:42:55and we now have premium outlets for nearly all our products.
00:42:59Those products are now so successful
00:43:02that Charles's Duchy Originals line,
00:43:04which began with bread made from Highgrove oats,
00:43:07is now owned by Waitrose
00:43:09and is the largest own-label organic brand in Britain.
00:43:13Which is astonishing that this began as an idea
00:43:16in the Prince of Wales's head a few decades ago
00:43:20and now it's nationwide.
00:43:23But it wasn't all about the gardens and land.
00:43:26The prince didn't neglect the house.
00:43:28He also decided it was time to make changes inside Highgrove.
00:43:32Charles worked with a very influential interior designer
00:43:35called Robert Kime.
00:43:37Nothing matches in a Robert Kime interior,
00:43:40but everything is beautiful,
00:43:42so there's a mixture of antique furniture,
00:43:45Persian carpets, wonderful paintings,
00:43:48which will be idiosyncratic,
00:43:50a mixture of old masters but perhaps something innovative.
00:43:54Kime's designs for Highgrove
00:43:56would have been a far cry from the lime greens and yellows
00:43:59of the Dudley poplark era.
00:44:01The interiors would have had a very different colour palette,
00:44:04much more based on reds and browns
00:44:07and a lot of textiles from the Middle East,
00:44:10which is an area where Robert Kime travelled extensively,
00:44:13buying up rugs and fabric.
00:44:16The prince was clearly impressed by Robert Kime's work at Highgrove
00:44:20as he asked him to decorate Clarence House
00:44:22when he inherited it from the Queen Mother in 2002.
00:44:25I think Clarence House's classic Robert Kime
00:44:28took a very, very sympathetic approach to the interiors.
00:44:32They had a real sense of comfort and familiarity,
00:44:36which Robert managed to summon up
00:44:39through combining furniture and fabrics
00:44:42that really made people feel at home.
00:44:45The newly decorated Highgrove
00:44:47was much enjoyed by the prince's weekend guests,
00:44:50including some of his favourite entertainers.
00:44:53Emma Thompson paid a visit there,
00:44:55Kenneth Branagh as well,
00:44:57Barbara Streisand, who King Charles was a huge fan of,
00:45:01spent some time there as well.
00:45:03Barbara Streisand chose to have her breakfast in bed
00:45:06and suddenly she was rather surprised
00:45:08when her bedroom door was thrown open
00:45:10to see a then Prince of Wales, Charles,
00:45:13searching for his lost dog, Tigger.
00:45:16She was a bit like, oh, my goodness.
00:45:18I think she thought that, obviously,
00:45:20everything would be stood on ceremony, including her host.
00:45:23But no, it's his house, he'd lost his dog,
00:45:26he could go anywhere he wanted to look for him.
00:45:28Sometimes, however, it was the visitor's behaviour
00:45:31that was unpredictable.
00:45:33Buckingham Palace is just up the road.
00:45:36And she's in. Go and get her.
00:45:39One of Charles' absolute all-time favourite comedy acts
00:45:42is The Goons, so one of the house guests was Spike Milligan
00:45:45and he spent the night sleeping on the floor of the bathroom
00:45:49of the Blue Room Suite instead of in his bed.
00:45:51Perhaps too much vintage claret had been consumed
00:45:54that night before supper.
00:45:56After his stay, he sent a plaque back to Highgrove
00:45:59and said, Spike Milligan slept here.
00:46:02Now, we're not sure if it was put on the floor,
00:46:04an exact spot where he slept in the Blue Suite,
00:46:07or it's on the mantelpiece, but he certainly wanted
00:46:09to remind everybody that he, comedian Spike Milligan,
00:46:12had stayed at Highgrove House.
00:46:15Charles' most frequent visitors, however,
00:46:17were a group of his close friends who lived nearby
00:46:20and shared his love of horses and the countryside.
00:46:23They became known as the Highgrove set.
00:46:26The set is as much a feature of Gloucestershire country houses
00:46:29in the 1990s as it is in the 1790s.
00:46:32The Highgrove set, of course,
00:46:34included Camilla Parker Bowles, as she then was.
00:46:37After Charles' separation and later divorce from Diana,
00:46:40Camilla was often present at Highgrove Entertainments.
00:46:45I think people were always very pleased
00:46:47when Camilla was there at a dinner party or an event
00:46:50because she innately brought, and still does,
00:46:53a sense of informality, joviality, mischiefness
00:46:58and general joy, actually, to the proceedings.
00:47:02Camilla lived close to Highgrove in a six-bedroom house
00:47:06on 17 acres called Ray Mill, just across the border in Wiltshire.
00:47:10When Camilla bought Ray Mill House and these 17 acres of land,
00:47:14the garden was pretty plain, there wasn't much to it.
00:47:17Meanwhile, Highgrove Garden had been thriving
00:47:20and really been doing beautifully with all these plants and flowers,
00:47:24so King Charles III sent a whole bunch over to Ray Mill House
00:47:27so that Camilla could establish her gardens as well,
00:47:30build them up and make them as beautiful as Highgrove.
00:47:34The Highgrove Gardens were definitely impressive,
00:47:37but for Prince Charles, the work was still unfinished.
00:47:41I was going there and driving up the drive on a very wet day in the 90s
00:47:46and there's a sort of wide verge at the side of the road
00:47:49and there's all these tree stumps, sort of biggledy-piggledy,
00:47:52massive great trees, and I thought, what's going on?
00:47:55And then it dawned, this was the start of the stumpery.
00:48:03It was originally a Victorian idea to have lots of tree stumps,
00:48:06which form almost like an architectural, sculptural area,
00:48:10and then to grow round them and on them bulbs in the spring
00:48:15and then hostas and then ferns.
00:48:18There's this weird wooden...
00:48:20It's like architecture, but it's just nature
00:48:23and the way the stumps have been laid down.
00:48:28It's like a magical woodland.
00:48:31You feel you've suddenly gone into Midsummer Night's Dream.
00:48:36After more than 15 years shaping Highgrove into a very personal garden,
00:48:41Charles made a surprising decision.
00:48:44In 1996, Charles took the rather unusual decision
00:48:48to open his gardens to the public.
00:48:51I personally think it's because he was so proud of what he created,
00:48:54he wanted to share it, he wanted to show it to people,
00:48:57he wanted to inspire people.
00:48:59A lot of people were beginning to realise that he had a lot to give
00:49:03and a lot of people wanted to see it.
00:49:06Why would you keep something like that secret?
00:49:09But what he had created at Highgrove was far from the formal stately gardens
00:49:13that people expect of a royal residence.
00:49:16How would the public react when he opened the gates?
00:49:25Arriving in style for their tea with the princes,
00:49:28this way at least, the Spice Girls could ensure...
00:49:31One of the more surprising celebrity visits to Highgrove was in 1998,
00:49:35when the Spice Girls, who were clearly quite comfortable around the royals,
00:49:39came for tea at Highgrove with the then Prince Charles and Prince Harry.
00:49:44Imagine you're obsessed with a singer, a band,
00:49:48and because your dad is Prince Charles,
00:49:51you could just invite them to tea!
00:49:54And I've always wanted to ask Harry, actually,
00:49:57was he delighted or was he mortified?
00:50:00Because when you're a teenage boy,
00:50:02it must be amazing to have a literal dream come true,
00:50:05to have this girl band that you adore,
00:50:08but also, was it not mortified to have to do with your dad?
00:50:12And, yeah, anyway, Harry won't tell us now, will he?
00:50:20I think the Spice Girls being helicoptered in for afternoon tea
00:50:24was definitely an interesting moment in Highgrove's history.
00:50:27You had all these scores of young people at the gates
00:50:30queuing up for the Spice Girls, but obviously for Prince William as well.
00:50:35The young fans had to wait outside
00:50:38without a glimpse of either the pop princesses or the real royalty.
00:50:42But Highgrove's gates were no longer always shut to the public.
00:50:47Two years earlier, paying tour groups had started visiting the gardens.
00:50:52I think visitors to Highgrove all come away with a sense of wonder, almost,
00:50:58that it's quite unlike the formal gardens you'd find in so many royal palaces,
00:51:03that in places nature has gone a bit wild.
00:51:07The tour gives visitors a rare glimpse of the king's inner self.
00:51:11To see a garden which has been very much made by one person
00:51:16is to have a window into their soul.
00:51:19It doesn't matter who you are.
00:51:23A garden that you create reflects your personality.
00:51:28Like the fact that Charles has placed some of the many busts
00:51:31he's been gifted over the years in the hedge in the Sundial Garden.
00:51:35He jokingly said, I think it should be called the Ego Garden
00:51:38because it's full of me, me, me, me, me.
00:51:40But it's a royal garden and, you know, a lot of people want to see him.
00:51:44And if they don't get to see him in person, at least they can see his busts.
00:51:49They looked amazing.
00:51:51I remember the prince saying, you know, what do you think of the bust?
00:51:54Well, I'm no art critic and I couldn't really say anything,
00:51:58but I said, what's interesting, sir, is that the sculptors all see you differently.
00:52:02I mean, not one sculptor is the same.
00:52:05And he said, I know, but you know what the common denominator is.
00:52:09I didn't quite know what he meant. I said, what do you mean, sir?
00:52:12He said, well, they always get my bloody ears right.
00:52:16I mean, it was so, so good of him to say that.
00:52:21I had a personal tour of the Highgrave Gardens,
00:52:24which was such a delight because he is such an enthusiastic gardener.
00:52:29He told me that delphiniums are his absolute favourite
00:52:32and the way he was kind of looking at them and smelling them,
00:52:36you could tell that this was a man who knew every plant in his garden.
00:52:40Charles may only be seen in sculpture on the public tours,
00:52:44but he is sometimes a lot closer than visitors realise.
00:52:52He's a great one for having windows open
00:52:54and occasionally he's in residence when these parties come outside.
00:52:58He'll go up to the window and he'll listen to what they're saying
00:53:01and I think once or twice he's ducked down at the window.
00:53:05I'm told that sometimes after the public have visited
00:53:08and he's in the gardens in the evening,
00:53:10he'll be around collecting rubbish using one of those grabbers.
00:53:15Once, apparently, whatever the rubbish was,
00:53:17it burst and covered him in something unpleasant.
00:53:20But this is real hands-on stuff from the King.
00:53:25But the opening up was worth it.
00:53:27Charles realised that Highgrave could become a showcase
00:53:30for his organic beliefs and methods.
00:53:33And so the Orchard Room was created as an entertaining space.
00:53:38Built in 1998,
00:53:39the Orchard Room provided a visitor's centre for the garden tours,
00:53:43as well as a community function room and at times royal banqueting hall.
00:53:48It's a single-storey building with a very high-pitched roof
00:53:52of Cotswold stone tiles
00:53:54and it's got a lovely feel to it with stone-flagged floors
00:53:57and big old carpets.
00:53:59The Orchard Room is dedicated to Charles' right-hand man at Highgrave,
00:54:03Paddy Whiteland, who had died the previous year.
00:54:08Paddy Whiteland was part and parcel of the fixtures of Highgrave
00:54:12and whenever I went there, he was always there.
00:54:15His loyalty, without question, was to the Prince of Wales.
00:54:19You get an insight into how highly the Prince of Wales
00:54:22thought of Paddy Whiteland,
00:54:24who dedicates it to Paddy and makes a point of telling people
00:54:27everything I have done at Highgrave is only possible
00:54:31because of Paddy Whiteland's support.
00:54:39Although Highgrave was opening up and being used more and more
00:54:43for Charles' work with his charitable foundation,
00:54:46it remained the family home for his now teenage sons.
00:54:49The deal? We smile for the cameras now,
00:54:52then you leave us alone until the autumn.
00:54:54It is an annual event, although it's not normally...
00:54:57To really get away from it all,
00:54:59William and Harry liked to head down to the basement,
00:55:02where they had a private den they called Club H for Highgrave.
00:55:06They managed to pilfer some furniture from different royal residences,
00:55:10so Parisian rugs, Moroccan sofas.
00:55:13They had a huge, very loud but apparently not very good stereo in there
00:55:18and that's where they and their friends would gather.
00:55:20And it was where they could drink.
00:55:22As Harry said, it was a well-stocked drink trolley,
00:55:25which some careful pilfering always made sure that they had beer and wine
00:55:29and probably gin, vodka, strong spirits.
00:55:32And there was a big vent, he says, so it was quite airy.
00:55:35It wasn't as, perhaps, subterranean as you might think.
00:55:39And he said, you could smell past flowers and lavender coming through.
00:55:42I mean, really? Could you, Harry? Could you?
00:55:45Or were you just a little bit... It was just the alcohol fumes!
00:55:48Well, it's definitely true that scent was an important part of the royal gardens.
00:55:54By 2001, Highgrave had become a destination garden for the public.
00:55:59But what would the gardening elite think of Charles' abilities?
00:56:03Inspired by two Persian carpets and one of the rooms at Highgrave,
00:56:07he decided to enter the world-famous Chelsea Flower Show.
00:56:11His mother, the Queen, stopped by to see his work, the so-called Carpet Garden.
00:56:16The late Queen would acquire plants at the Chelsea Flower Show or be given them,
00:56:22but never before Charles was a monarch or heir involved in designing a garden.
00:56:30I think it got a silver medal, and I'm not sure if the Prince of Wales was pleased with that.
00:56:35I think he would have preferred a gold.
00:56:37But it was bold of him to put something out there and to be judged.
00:56:41After the show, the Carpet Garden was installed near the Orchard Room at Highgrave,
00:56:45where it's become a visitor favourite.
00:56:48You go in through the door and it's, wow, there's this huge mass of colour
00:56:53and a fountain bowl going over an octagon, coloured tilework.
00:56:59And I think the Persian Carpet Garden actually looks much better at Highgrave at Spandau than it looked at Chelsea.
00:57:05But more than anything, the gardens have always been a deeply personal project for the King,
00:57:11a passion he now shares with Camilla.
00:57:14Both Highgrave and Ray Mill have very lovely gardens now.
00:57:18And it was actually rather lovely that at their wedding, the flowers came from both houses,
00:57:23so very personal touch, and showed how much that part of the country,
00:57:27particularly Highgrave, means so much to them.
00:57:30Highgrave is now Charles and Camilla's family home.
00:57:33But what will happen to this favourite royal residence in the future?
00:57:45Leaving Buckingham Palace for the last time on a gun carriage,
00:57:50the coffin of Queen Elizabeth.
00:57:55The days following the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022
00:58:00were a very challenging time for the new king.
00:58:05My life will, of course, change as I take up my new responsibilities.
00:58:11But there was one place that remained a familiar source of comfort and peace.
00:58:16We had a couple of days of quiet time amidst all the responsibilities
00:58:21of taking the throne and touring the country, and they were spent at Highgrave.
00:58:26It's a great battery charger, Highgrave, for the king.
00:58:31The king has even built a small chapel on the grounds known as the Sanctuary.
00:58:36Sanctified by the Bishop of London, it's one of the few places he can be completely alone.
00:58:42There's nothing about the Sanctuary, apart from it's outside, because I've never been in.
00:58:46Because I think the thing about the Sanctuary is that it's his private space.
00:58:50And I think, goodness me, if anybody needs a place that nobody else goes in in this life, it's him.
00:58:58Despite all the changes at Highgrave, it's always been the family home.
00:59:02When Prince William started dating Kate Middleton in the early 2000s,
00:59:06they would often spend the weekend there.
00:59:10There's nothing like having your photo taken on your birthday.
00:59:14And there was an occasion, they were in Tetbury, which is the local town about a mile away,
00:59:18and the crowds and the media, it has to be said, got very excited about her there and surrounded her.
00:59:23And so she had to take refuge in a dress shop.
00:59:26Today, William and Catherine's children enjoy the freedom of Highgrave's gardens.
00:59:31I remember going round the Highgrave gardens and seeing a little plaque,
00:59:36and it said that it was a balsam poplar that had been planted by Prince George.
00:59:41Now this was 2015, so I suspect a two-year-old Prince George probably wasn't digging out the ground to put the tree in,
00:59:50but it's really sweet because it turns out that Charles and George had planted this tree together.
00:59:55And this tree has grown in the last nine years really tall, just like Prince George.
01:00:01Visitors on the Highgrave tour are often told about the grandchildren's garden games.
01:00:06The grandchildren in their treehouse have to look out for a chompy bob,
01:00:10and chompy bob is a slug-eating dinosaur.
01:00:14Who knows how chompy bob first came into being, but he lives in the stumpery in Highgrave gardens.
01:00:21One of the most recent additions to Highgrave is a family of life-sized elephant sculptures
01:00:27designed to promote the conservation work of the Elephant Family Charity, set up by Camilla's late brother Mark Shand.
01:00:34And wherever my brother is, I'm sure he's praying that they'll make a lot of money for the charity.
01:00:40And looking at them, I mean, how can you resist them? They are very lifelike, aren't they?
01:00:45The elephants will certainly be widely seen.
01:00:48Highgrave now receives up to 40,000 visitors a year for garden tours and events.
01:00:54So it's become very commercial.
01:00:56That long drive from the road now that took you up into Tetbury is far more formalised.
01:01:01You get shunted in by way of signs to a car park.
01:01:04Highgrave has become a busy place, hosting many events and functions.
01:01:09Perhaps that's why even after her marriage, Camilla kept her nearby home, Ray Mill.
01:01:14Ray Mill House is where Camilla, our Queen, can be Camilla as she used to be,
01:01:20where she can put on a pair of jeans, some muddy Wellington boots, pot around the garden,
01:01:27have a large glass of something or other, and not worry about everything being tidy and formal and perfect.
01:01:35Even though he now owns a huge portfolio of properties,
01:01:39Highgrave is still one of Charles' favourite places to spend his weekends.
01:01:43Highgrave speaks to Charles. It's somewhere where he is master of his own kingdom.
01:01:48The walls have grown in his time there, the trees have grown.
01:01:51It's private. I think for him it's very emotional.
01:01:55So much so that even when the King is away from home, he reportedly takes a bit of Highgrave with him.
01:02:01So he takes a Highgrave hamper, and in that he has six types of honey that he has for his breakfast,
01:02:07along with jam and oat cakes and other bits in there as well.
01:02:10But also he likes to gift hampers to people.
01:02:13I suppose the question even plagues royalty, you know, what does one give the Pope?
01:02:17And he goes to visit Pope Francis in 2017 and takes with him Highgrave produce.
01:02:29He gave him a hamper of Highgrave products and, you know,
01:02:32made sure that the Pope knew that this was all things that he made himself, all produce from Highgrave.
01:02:38But even though Highgrave means so much to King Charles, it's not technically his house anymore.
01:02:44A curious consequence of Charles becoming King is that he no longer has the Duchy of Cornwall,
01:02:49and Highgrave is part of that duchy.
01:02:53The Duchy of Cornwall estate funds the Prince of Wales, not the monarch.
01:02:59So now technically Charles is his son's tenant, which is interesting. I hope they don't fall out.
01:03:06King Charles III now has to pay Prince William, who is his landlord,
01:03:11around £650,000 a year to live at Highgrave House.
01:03:16I think you'll find the money's still in the Royal Family.
01:03:19As King, Charles has had to step back from the day-to-day management of Highgrave.
01:03:24He gave up the lease to the farms a few years ago,
01:03:27and his charitable foundation now runs the gardens, tours and events.
01:03:31I think the fact that the King's foundation is running the garden now is really a look to the future.
01:03:38And I think what the King's doing is making sure that Highgrave will continue to work,
01:03:43and that it's safe and it's secure.
01:03:46That doesn't mean Charles has hung up his trowel, of course.
01:03:49The King, even while convalescing from his cancer, has been gardening and has been ordering new trees.
01:03:56He's taking what he learnt at Highgrave to his other property portfolios,
01:04:00Dumfries House, Sandringham, Buckingham Palace.
01:04:04We're all going to have a turn.
01:04:07The gardens at Buckingham Palace are quite boring, and there's a lot more wildflower meadows now,
01:04:12and a lot more nature and naturalism at Buckingham Palace.
01:04:15And that's literally come from Highgrave, because that really was his practice.
01:04:20Highgrave has been so influential as a kind of idea, and so remarkable as a landscape.
01:04:26I think it will continue to be open to the public for decades to come.
01:04:32It may be that one of the new generation will one day want to live there.
01:04:36We have George, we have Charlotte, we have Louis.
01:04:39And, of course, we're all going to want to live there.
01:04:42We're all going to want to live there.
01:04:44The new generation will one day want to live there.
01:04:46We have George, we have Charlotte, we have Louis.
01:04:49And, of course, for George, it really would be like going home,
01:04:52because he's got his own little corner of the garden and the tree he planted
01:04:55when he was a very young little boy.
01:04:58So, who knows?
01:05:00One thing's for sure, the King may have transformed Highgrave,
01:05:03but the once humble country house has also had an impact on the King.
01:05:09The King has been working on Highgrave for a good 40 years.
01:05:13It's not just his garden.
01:05:15It's really the heart of all his environmental concerns, all his passions.
01:05:22And I think the King's legacy will be not just the garden,
01:05:28but the whole environmental concerns that really are spin-offs from the garden.
01:05:34But more than anything, it's been a personal haven and sanctuary.
01:05:39As King, he has many palaces at his disposal.
01:05:42But he'd never had a home that he could call his own and could mould and transform.
01:05:48And that's what Highgrave has been for him.
01:05:50And I think in difficult times, it's been a refuge.
01:05:54It was a wonderful site for his kids to grow up.
01:05:58It's been really, really important, both in mind and soul and for his stability.
01:06:06Highgrave may have started life as an ordinary country manor house,
01:06:10but today it can claim a place in the first rank of royal residences.
01:06:15Its now stunning grounds are a mecca for garden lovers and royal fans alike.
01:06:22But at the centre of it all is the house, a very personal home for the King and his family.
01:06:29Here, in its relaxing, comfortable rooms, he can step away from royal duties and truly be himself.
01:06:41Next Saturday, visit another of the King's favourite places to hang out, Clarence House, a royal residence at 7.30.
01:06:48Next night, putting on his best clobber to take us on a tour of one of his favourite places,
01:06:52Jay Blades in brand new The West End, through time.