England

Gloucestershire

near Tetbury

51.62271

-2.1801

1796

1798

Fully Extant

Grade II

Not Listed

No

Grounds Only

01666-503-203

The Crown / Royal Family

Private Home

Owned by the Duchy of Cornwall. Country seat of the Prince of Wales. Gardens are open to the public.

Charles Philip Arthur George Windsor, Prince of Wales, Earl of Chester, Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland.

Josiah Paul Tippetts, 18th century. John Paul Paul; Paul family, 18th century-1860. Col. E.J. Strachey, 1860-64. William Hamilton Yatman, 1864-93. A.C. Mitchell, 1864-? Maurice Macmillan, mid-20th century.

Highgrove was built for members of the Paul family, French Huguenot clothiers who settled in Gloucestershire in the 17th and 18th centuries. Josiah Paul Tippetts inherited the Paul family’s property in 1789, at which time he changed his surname, rather confusingly, to Paul. Josiah had married Mary Clark of Tetbury in 1771, and it was through her that he inherited the Highgrove Estate. It was their son, John Paul Paul, who, between 1796 and 1798, built the rectangular ashlar house with giant pilasters and a fine Palladian window on the second floor. The designer of Highgrove is not known for certain, but it seems likely that it was the Gloucestershire architect Anthony Keck. In 1860 the Paul family sold Highgrove to Col. E.J. Strachey, who, in turn, sold the Estate in 1864 to a barrister by the name of William Hamilton Yatman. It was during Yatman’s ownership that the devastating 1893 fire gutted all of the original interiors; Yatman, by this time an old man, decided it was easier to move than rebuild. He sold the Estate to A.C. Mitchell, who hired John Hart of Bristol in 1894 to rebuild the interiors within the surviving shell in a simplified version of the original design. In 1980 the Duchy of Cornwall purchased Highgrove from Maurice Macmillan (son of former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan) for use as a country house by HRH The Prince of Wales (the Prince is also the Duke of Cornwall). The House was decorated by Dudley Poplak, the interior decorator who also worked on the Prince and Princess of Wales’s apartment at Kensington Palace, and the royal couple moved into Highgrove in the fall of 1981. In 1988 the plain exterior of the House was embellished with a new pediment, balustrade, and giant Ionic pilasters, all to the designs of the Prince of Wales. At the same time a new single-story staff annex was also added.

The Prince of Wales, a keen gardener, designed many of the gardens at Highgrove himself, including the Wild Garden, the Formal Garden, and the walled Kitchen Garden. The Prince’s gardens have become famous and attracted international attention, becoming the subject of numerous gardening books and magazine articles. The Estate, which borders Westonbirt Arboretum, is home to the National Beech Collection. The 900 acres of the Estate are farmed by the Duchy of Cornwall, who grow vegetables, fruit, and flowers organically (the move to organic farming at Highgrove began in 1985 and was completed in 1996). Animal husbandry is also practiced on the Estate; the beef herd includes pedigree Angus bulls, Aberdeen-Angus females and yearlings, and Angus cross Friesian cows. There is also a flock of Mule and Masham sheep.