The Gist
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle could stay at Princess Diana’s former home when they visit the United Kingdom with their children next month.
Althorp House, where Diana spent her teenage years, is closed to the public for two days in July.
She is also buried on the grounds of the estate, which her family has owned for over 500 years.
When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle return to the United Kingdom with their children next month, they might be staying at Princess Diana’s former home. The Duke of Sussex will promote the 2027 Invictus Games in England ahead of next year’s Birmingham event.
The late Princess of Wales spent her teenage years at Althorp House in West Northamptonshire, about an hour away from Birmingham. She is also buried on the grounds of the property, which her family has owned for over 500 years.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on July 11, 2024.
Credit: Getty Images
According to Althorp House’s website, the estate will be closed to the public on July 10 and 11, suggesting that Harry could be visiting with Meghan, Prince Archie, and Princess Lilibet.
Diana first moved into Althorp in 1975, at age 14, when her father, John Spencer, inherited the title of earl and the rights to the estate. Before that, they lived at the idyllic Park House on the royal family’s Sandringham estate.
Moving from her childhood home to her ancestral one was quite a shift for teenage Diana. In Sarah Bradford’s 2006 biography Diana, she was quoted as saying, “[T]hat was a terrible wrench, leaving Norfolk, because that’s where everybody who I’d grown up with lived.”
Princess Diana and Prince William at Althorp House in 1989.
Credit: Tim Graham/Getty Images
Aerial view of Althorp, the Spencer family home where Princess Diana is buried.
Credit: David Goddard/Getty
Diana spent approximately three years there before attending a Swiss finishing school for a semester in 1978 and subsequently moving in with her mother in London. On her 18th birthday, according to Bradford, Diana’s mother bought her a flat in West London as a present. She would live there until becoming engaged to Prince Charles in 1981, at which time she moved into Clarence House.
Following her death in 1997, Diana was buried on an island located on the grounds. The Oval Lake Grave, as it’s known, was chosen so “her grave can be properly looked after by her family and visited in privacy by her sons,” her brother, Charles, 9th Earl Spencer, once said in a statement, per People.
Althorp House sits on an expansive 14,000-acre estate—for reference, Manhattan is around 14,600 acres—encompassing a lake, stables, an 18th-century guesthouse, a memorial temple honoring Diana, and the lush surrounding gardens.
An aerial view of the burial site of Diana, Princess of Wales in 2006.
Credit: David Goddard/Getty Images
Althorp is open to the public for just two months each year. Castles on Camera reported over 30,000 visitors make the trip each year to pay homage to Diana. Visitors are not allowed to go to the island where Diana is buried, but they are allowed to trek into the Doric-style temple memorial built in July 1998.
36 oak trees line the path from Althorp House to the lake which holds Diana’s grave—one for each year of her life.
Read the original article on InStyle