bitchy | KP confirms: The Cambridge kids will go to Lambrook starting in September

Pretty crazy to think that Kensington Palace has been openly briefing the media about the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s Berkshire house-hunting and school changes for their kids, yet we’ve only gotten a “formal announcement” about the changes right now, this week. It’s been over fourteen months since we first heard about this scheme for William and Kate to relocate their family to Windsor/Berkshire. They were looking at private homes, they were publicly lobbying the Queen and Charles for one of the fancier properties on the Royal Windsor estate, they were looking at different schools. And after all of that, it’s likely just Kate and the kids moving into a four-bedroom cottage with no staff quarters, and the kids are going to a co-ed school for rich peasants.

Prince William and Kate will move with their three children George, Charlotte and Louis to Adelaide Cottage in Windsor and send them to the prestigious £21,000-a-year Lambrook School nearby, it was confirmed today.

The couple have been planning a move to Berkshire since last year and royal aides have now revealed their children will all go to the same school, which is about seven miles away from their new home, from September. William and Kate, both 40, who have been based at Kensington Palace since 2017, are said to want to give the youngsters a country upbringing and want to be closer to the Duchess’s parents, Michael and Carole Middleton.

A source said: ‘This is very much a decision that two parents have made to give their children the ‘most normal’ start possible. KP can be a little bit of a fishbowl. They wanted to be able to give George, Charlotte and Louis a bit more freedom than they have living in central London. It’s very much a decision that’s been led by the kids.’

The couple, who will also now be closer to the Queen’s private apartments at Windsor Castle, will retain the 20-room Apartment 1A at Kensington Palace as a base in the capital – and this will also be the offices for their staff. The Cambridges also intend to also keep a third property – their current country home at Anmer Hall on the 96-year-old monarch’s Sandringham estate in Norfolk, which they are expected to still visit there for retreats.

William and Kate are understood to want to be closer to the Queen, who has suffered various health issues over the past year – and this will position them in a new era where they are taking over more important royal roles.

Adelaide Cottage will be William and Kate’s fourth property if including a holiday home in Scotland. William was given the Tam-Na-Ghar cottage on the Balmoral estate by his great-grandmother the Queen Mother in 2002. Just yesterday, Kate and her children Charlotte and Louis were spotted sitting in economy on a budget flight to Inverness Airport with their nanny and a security team as they travelled to Balmoral to holiday with the Queen.

Kensington Palace confirmed the family will be moving to Adelaide Cottage before the school term begins. A spokesman for the couple said today: ‘The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have today announced that Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis will attend Lambrook School in Berkshire from September 2022. Their Royal Highnesses are hugely grateful to Thomas’s Battersea where George and Charlotte have had a happy start to their education since 2017 and 2019 respectively and are pleased to have found a school for all three of their children which shares a similar ethos and values to Thomas’s.’

[From The Daily Mail]

This is full of interesting little asides! “Kate and her children Charlotte and Louis were spotted sitting in economy…” So… William had George this weekend and they traveled to Scotland separately? Sounds like Kate has been enjoying “one last summer” at Anmer Hall before she’s shuffled off to Adelaide Cottage permanently, right? “This will position them in a new era where they are taking over more important royal roles…” Yes, that’s what hiding out in a downgraded cottage in Windsor means, it means that Kate is getting a much more important role! So much for all of her big birthday embiggening, Kate is being exiled to Berkshire where we’ll barely ever see her “work” again. As for the confirmation of the school… it sounds like a perfectly acceptable school in general. It’s just very strange to me that William and Kate have never prioritized the aristo-“pipeline” schools where William and Harry went when they were kids.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Avalon Red.