Royal author Andrew Lownie claims so many unopened Amazon boxes have piled up at Royal Lodge that staff don’t know what to do with them as the Duchess of York prepares to downsize
The former duchess reportedly has a huge mountain of unopened parcels to deal with(Image: Mark Cuthbert, UK Press via Getty Images)
As Christmas draws near, most of us are grappling with finding space for the endless stream of deliveries arriving at our doors. Yet this dilemma reaches extraordinary proportions for Sarah Ferguson, the former Duchess of York, according to royal biographer Andrew Lownie, as she faces the prospect of leaving the expansive Royal Lodge.
Andrew, who has rubbished claims that Sarah is considering relocating to “a converted cattle shed on Princess Beatrice’s £3.5 million Cotswolds estate”, suggests the sheer quantity of her belongings is baffling household staff.
Writing on his personal Substack, Lownie reveals: “I wrote in Entitled that at Sunninghill Park, there was a warehouse style room nicknamed ‘Aladdin’s Cave’ which contained thousands of gifts.
“Similarly I’m told that there are so many unopened Amazon boxes at Royal Lodge that nobody knows quite what to do with them.” This has created an “extraordinary challenge”, he says.
Both Ms Ferguson and Mr Mountbatten-Windsor will be moving to new homes in 2026(Image: Getty)
The former Duchess’s lavish spending habits have become the stuff of royal folklore. In his book Entitled, Lownie documented how by 1995, she had accumulated debts totalling £3.7m.
One former member of staff told him that Ferguson would orchestrate elaborate feasts for herself and her daughters, with vast amounts of food subsequently wasted. The source alleged: “Every night she demands a whole side of beef, a leg of lamb and a chicken which are laid out on the dining room table like a medieval banquet that would make Henry VIII proud.
“But often there is just her and her girls, Bea and Eugenie, and most of it is wasted. There is no attempt to keep it to have it cold the next day. It just sits there all night, and the next day it’s thrown away.”
Ms Ferguson regularly splurged on expensive holidays(Image: Getty)
She was also said to have splashed out lavishly on presents for friends, employees and associates, despite frequently lamenting her dwindling finances.
Lownie reveals in his publication: “But still the spending went on – £14,000 in just one month with a particular London wine merchant.
“Over the previous year Sarah had travelled to Puerto Rico, Bermuda, Switzerland, Hong Kong and Poland and made four trips to America, each time staying at the luxury Carlyle Hotel, where the cheapest suite was £330 a night.”
Ferguson’s former lover John Bryan [R] said she was a big spender(Image: Daily Mirror)
The author continues: “On a three-day visit to New York, she had one car to take her to the airport and another for her ten suitcases, all tissue-lined, with more outfits than she could hope to wear. Her assistant Christine Gallagher had once been sent on Concorde, at a cost of £5,000, to bring her some paperwork.”
John Bryan, whose romance with Ferguson resulted in her separation from Prince Andrew – as he was known at the time – disclosed that the extravagant duchess’s £860,000 yearly outgoings comprised £300,000 on personnel, £150,000 on presents, £50,000 on floral arrangements, £50,000 on celebrations, £150,000 on journeys and £100,000 on attire – with £25,000 of that sum spent within a single hour at prestigious New York department store Bloomingdales.
A spokesperson for Sarah Ferguson was approached regarding this article, but chose not to comment.