A member of the royal family for nearly twelve years, Catherine, The Princess of Wales and Queen-in-waiting, has had a varied home history, particularly with a wealth of palaces and royal residences at her disposal, but this post takes a look back to where it all began with an exploration of Kate Middleton’s childhood homes:
Childhood Semi-Detached Home, Bradfield Southend
After marrying in 1980, Middleton’s parents, Mike and Carole, purchased a 2-bedroom semi-detached home for £34,000, in Bradfield Southend just outside the large town of Reading. In 1982, they brought their first child, Catherine Middleton, home from the hospital. Though the house was a simple two-bedroom, one-bathroom semi, the attic was converted and soon enough also housed Kate’s younger siblings too. The snug home featured a sizeable garden, featuring the shed that Carole would later use to start her mail order party supplies company. In an 2018 interview with The Telegraph Carole briefly spoke about the family’s time at the property: ‘A very sweet semi-detached cottage. We stayed there until Catherine was 13, so the children spent a lot of their youth there.’ The Middletons moved on from the house in 1995, selling the property for £158,000 – a £124,000 profit in just 15 years.
Childhood Jordanian Villa, Amman
From the age of 2, Kate and her family lived in the Jordanian capital of Amman while her father worked as a flight dispatcher for British Airways at the Queen Alia International Airport. The one-storey building came with three bedrooms and a concrete walled back garden, rented for £300 per month. According to The Daily Mail, Kate briefly attended the nearby Al-Sahera nursery, though Carole and her daughters did not live at the residence full-time. The house is in the heart of the busy Um Uthainah area of the capital, a built-up area full of high-rises. Today, the property is a paediatrics centre.
Teenage Detached House, Bucklebury
After selling the Bradfield Southend semi, the family mortgaged a five-bedroom, three-bathroom detached property in Bucklebury for £250,000. Reached by a private lane, Oak Acre was set within half an acre of land featuring a two-car wood garage and a vegetable patch. Inside were three reception rooms, an orangery and views over the neighbouring fields. The future princess was thirteen when the family moved to the residence.
It is perhaps the most famous of Kate’s childhood homes thanks to Prince William’s arrival in a helicopter on the neighbour’s adjacent field, during his and Kate’s courtship. It was also the property the Middleton family lived at when the news broke of Kate and Will’s engagement on a cold October morning in 2010. It was where Mike and Carole gave a brief statement at the five-bar gate outside the home. The property is also where Kate chose to stay after giving birth to her first child; Prince George.
The property was extended during the Middletons’ incumbency, including a large extension to the two-car garage, featuring an over-garage office, a dog kennel, kitchenette, living area and bedroom. This was created largely to house the growing number of security who needed to stay at the house during The [then] Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s stays. In 2013, the property was sold for £2.3 million – a £2.05 million profit in 18 years.
Young Adult Apartment, London
Like any well-heeled family, a base in London became an essential asset, so in 2002 a smart three-bedroom duplex in the fashionable Chelsea area of West London was purchased for £780,000; at the time it was the most amount of money the family had paid for a property, but like all of their other homes it proved to be a wise investment. In 2018, it went up for sale for £1,950,000. Kate was 22 when the elegant pied-a-terre was purchased, and it became her primary residence until her wedding in 2011. On the morning of her 25th birthday, the street outside the property was famously the scene of a mass of, no less than, sixteen paparazzi who hounded her as she left for work.
View more house histories in previous posts such as those of Jackie Kennedy, John F Kennedy, Prince Phillip and Queen Elizabeth, or browse various royal residences by browsing the ‘royalty‘ tag.