{"id":518456,"date":"2026-06-25T22:27:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T22:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/518456\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T22:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T22:27:09","slug":"king-charles-upends-tradition-and-opts-not-to-live-in-buckingham-palace-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/518456\/","title":{"rendered":"King Charles upends tradition and opts not to live in Buckingham Palace \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

It has been the official residence of UK monarchs since 1837, but Buckingham Palace will never be the home of the British king Charles<\/a>, it has been confirmed.<\/p>\n

In a break with tradition, Charles and Queen Camilla have decided not to move into the central London palace when a \u00a3370 million (\u20ac429 million), 10-year revamp of the building finishes in 2027, royal officials have said.<\/p>\n

Instead, Buckingham Palace will become the monarch\u2019s \u201cprimary workplace\u201d while it will also be opened up more to the public \u2013 visitors can be charged up to \u00a3100 for tours.<\/p>\n

The king and queen have used nearby Clarence House, a few hundred yards further up the mall, as their official London home since 2003.<\/p>\n

\"MembersMembers of the British royal family at a ceremony to mark King Charles’s birthday last year. Photograph: Aaron Chown\/PA <\/p>\n

Charles and Camilla continued to live at Clarence House after he became king in September 2022 due to the revamp at Buckingham Palace, which was the London home of his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth, and monarchs going back to Victoria.<\/p>\n

It had been expected that Charles and Camilla would later move to the palace, but royal officials say the king has now decided this will not happen. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt will remain a working home, but we are seeking to widen public access precisely to maximise the national benefit\u201d of Britain, they said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be a buzzing hive of royal activity in every other way,\u201d said a palace spokesperson, adding that the British king retains \u201chuge affection\u201d for the palace, which is associated the world over with the British royal family.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Analysis: Charles steps back from \u2018the big house\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Palace officials have also announced that the British king has been charged \u00a330 million (\u20ac35 mililon) in taxes since he acceded to the throne in 2022, the first time a British monarch has publicly revealed their tax bill.<\/p>\n

The palace said Charles paid \u00a311.7 million in the tax year 2023-24 (the British tax year runs from April to March), \u00a312.9 million in 2024-25, with the remainder paid in 2022-23.<\/p>\n

Months after the British royal family was shaken by scandal around the king\u2019s brother, former prince Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, palace officials have also announced plans to scale back the sovereign grant paid to Charles by taxpayers.<\/p>\n

\"KingKing Charles with British prime minister Keir Starmer at Buckingham Palace, London. Photograph: Yui Mok\/PA <\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s sovereign grant was \u00a3132.1 million, of which \u00a367.5 million was used for the \u201cpreservation and protection\u201d of royal residences. It will rise to \u00a3137.9 million this year, the final year of the Buckingham Palace revamp, before being fixed at \u00a399.9 million for five years after that.<\/p>\n

Keeper of the privy purse James Chalmers said the British monarch\u2019s aim was to \u201cdeliver value for money\u201d. He said the king\u2019s \u201csoft power plays an increasingly vital diplomatic role\u201d \u2013 Charles made a state visit this year to the United States at a time when Britain\u2019s political relations with US president Donald Trump had hit the buffers.<\/p>\n

In May, the British king also accepted an invitation from President Catherine Connolly for a full state visit to the Republic.<\/p>\n

Separately, the Duchy of Cornwall, the private estate that generates income for the British monarch\u2019s son, William, says it will redirect the \u00a31.5 million annual rent it gets from the British government for Dartmoor Prison to fund local community projects.<\/p>\n

The prison in Devon has been closed since 2024 after it was found to have radon gas levels 10 times higher than safe limits. Residents in the nearby village of Princetown feared the closure would devastate the local economy.<\/p>\n

The duchy also says it plans to invest \u00a3500 million in projects over the next decade. Its holdings include 129,000 acres of land, including most of the Isles of Scilly, as well as commercial buildings such as a warehouse used to house ambulances in London.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It has been the official residence of UK monarchs since 1837, but Buckingham Palace will never be the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60,7428,99],"class_list":["post-518456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-king-charles","tag-london"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}