Scottish estate includes castle, country houses, woodland and grouse moor – assets the royals have started to monetise
The royal family’s Scottish retreat at Balmoral has become something of a must-see tourist destination for visitors to the Highlands. Families pay £35 at the old gatehouse before walking down a pine tree-lined avenue towards the castle, which is now open to the public again for the first time since the queen’s death there last September.
The three-storey granite house, with its decorative turrets and circular towers, is still almost all shuttered. Just the small ballroom is open to view, displaying an exhibition of Windsor family photographs: the queen in tweed skirts; Prince Philip in open-necked shirts and rolled up sleeves; the young princes Charles, Andrew and Edward, and Princess Anne with ponies; and a picture gallery of the queen at Braemar’s Highland Games.
