Kate Middleton’s Childhood Home
Kate Middleton will take over Buckingham Palace for her royal wedding reception to Prince William on April 29, but fans of the princess bride could take over the home where she grew up. According to the website of Dudley Singleton and Daughter, Middleton’s childhood home in the village of Bradfield Southend, southeast England, is up for sale.
The four-bedroomed property in the village of Bradfield Southend, is one of the key sights on bus tours of Middleton Country which have attracted tourists from all over the world since Miss Middleton’s engagement to Prince William was announced last year. Middleton’s parents, Michael and Carole, purchased the house in 1979. Middleton herself lived there for the first 13 years of her life, from 1982 to 1995, until the family moved to another home in Chapel Row.
The Royal Berkshire Victorian villa known as West View has since exchanged hands several times and will head to public auction on June 3, selling to the highest qualified bidder. The sale is subject to reserve and the home is valued at £495,000, or more than $806,000, a price tag some investors may find hard to pass up.
Dudley Singleton, the auctioneer handling the sale, said: It’s always possible that someone will buy it as an investment, because if Kate becomes queen someone might even want to open it as a museum one day and charge people to see it. There’s also a chance that someone could look to buy it as a holiday let, but if it sells to someone who just wants it as their home I’m not sure the royal connection will attract a huge premium.
The 1,380 square-foot house sits on 0.255 acres. It features two reception rooms, a kitchen, family room, cloakroom and four bedrooms. The auction website lists the house as a family home that was built at the turn of the century. The Middletons built a ground-floorextension to make the kitchen bigger and to add a playroom, which remains unchanged, as does the back garden where their daughter used to play with her younger sister Pippa and brother James.
The house is also next door to the village school where Miss Middleton briefly attended a playgroup before moving on to the fee-paying St Andrew’s School in Pangbourne.
Catherine Middleton, a fashionable brown-haired beauty, and Price William, the eldest son of the late Princess Diana and Prince Charles, will exchange nuptials at London’s famed Westminster Abbey on April 29, in a ceremony attended by foreign royals, leading politicians and celebrities, which is expected to attract a global TV audience of more than one billion.
Kate Middleton's Childhood Home
Kate Middleton's Childhood Home
