Prince William and Kate Middleton are packing up and moving, again. The Wales family’s new home will be Forest Lodge in Windsor Great Park, only five miles away from Adelaide Cottage, where they currently live. Built in the 1700s and last renovated in 2001, Forest Lodge is a stately Georgian mansion fit for a future king and queen. The move sparked controversy when The Mail on Sunday reported that two separate families nearby were asked to leave their homes and were given other accommodations in Windsor Great Park.
William and Kate are no strangers to revolving real estate: They have been house hopping since they were college students at St. Andrews University in Scotland. In fact, their romance blossomed after they were already roommates.
13A Hope Street
Prince William and Kate Middleton met at St. Andrews in 2001 and became fast friends. In 2002, Will and Catherine, along with friends Fergus Boyd and Olivia Bleasdale, decided to leave the campus dorms and rent a flat together.
According to Robert Jobson’s Catherine, the Princess of Wales, they chose an apartment at 13A Hope Street, an unassuming gray stone house on a street filled with student housing. Although the landlord was initially wary of renting to college boys, she decided to make an exception for the prince and was soon struck by how normal and pleasant William and his roommates seemed. The rent was normal as well, reportedly only 400 British pounds a week, split four ways.
Of course, some accommodations had to be made. According to Jobson, bulletproof windows and a bomb-proof front door were installed, and security officers were always close by. But in other ways it was a typical college apartment, with William shopping at Safeway supermarket and doing chores. “We all get on very well and start off having rotas, but, of course, it just broke down into complete chaos. Everyone helps out when they can,” William said at the time, according to Prince William by Penny Junor. “I try to help out when I can and they do the same for me, but usually you just fend for yourself.”
They say you don’t really know a person until you live with them, and Kate and William clearly liked their experience. Sparks began flying between the two, and they were soon more than just platonic housemates. According to Jobson, the couple spent quiet nights with Boyd and Bleasdale listening to R&B and jazz and cooking each other meals. But it wasn’t all studying and lazing about; 13A Hope Street also became known for its raucous parties.
Kate Middleton and Prince William during a visit to The Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace, August 30, 2017.Chris Jackson/Getty Images.
According to Junor, the frequent festivities drove one of their neighbors, a part-time lecturer named Dana, crazy. “The poor girl was plagued with students partying three times a week,” a source told Junor. “She was really suffering, on the verge of tears because she couldn’t sleep. One night she got up and went and knocked on the door of one to ask them to keep the music down. The door was opened and who was in the hallway but William!”
However, living on a lively public street had its drawbacks. As their romance blossomed, Kate and William would leave the apartment at different times of day. The location was also a headache for members of William’s security team, but it fit in with his desire to live a normal life.
Balgove House
For the next two school years, the couple decided to move away from prying eyes into the countryside. Along with new roommates Oliver Baker and Alasdair Coutts-Wood, they rented an old cottage called Balgove House, owned by William’s distant cousin Henry Cheape. “Balgove House stood in its own grounds with some two acres of wild meadow surrounded by a six-foot-high stone wall,” Robert Lacey writes in Battle of Brothers. “William said it was just like a miniature Highgrove—and only a quarter of a mile from the St. Andrews campus.”
Although their famous house parties continued, their two years spent at Balgove House also offered more intimate delights. “With open countryside to walk in without fear of being spotted, and open fires to come home to in the dark evenings,” Junor writes, “it was little short of idyllic and provided the perfect sanctuary for William and Kate to explore their relationship further.”
Bodorgan Hall
After Kate and William graduated in 2005, they officially lived apart for several years. But in 2010, the couple was engaged, and William took a job as a search-and-rescue pilot based in Anglesey, a bucolic rural island in Wales. Kate soon joined him, according to Hello Magazine.
