Inside Camilla’s £3.15million childhood home where her father ‘Prince Charles roared’

Few can match King Charles’ childhood, who grew up among some of the country’s most imposing residences. But Queen Camilla’s early years weren’t too shabby.

Tucked away in a small village in the South Downs, East Sussex, Camilla grew up in a beautiful rural home in Sussex with her sister Annabel and late brother Mark.

The Laines is a seven bedroom former vicarage situated on the edge of the village of Plumpton with views of the sprawling hills from every window.

Camilla once described the home and the idyllic childhood she enjoyed there as “perfect in every way.”

Featuring a paddock, wide lawns, a secret garden, swimming pool and tennis court, the house was put up for sale in 2015 for £3.5 million.

The owner at the time was actor James Wilby, best known for his roles in Maurice, Gosford Park and A Handful of Dust.

He had bought the house in 1997 from Camilla’s father Major Bruce Shand and his wife Rosalind.

The Grade II listed house was built in the 18th century and the main rooms of the house have high ceilings overlooking the garden and the South Downs.

An orangery was added in the 1970s.

Camilla and her siblings spent their childhood between their permanent home in East Sussex and their parents’ second home in South Kensington.

The family had moved to rural Sussex after the end of World War II to be closer to Camilla’s maternal grandmother, Sonia Cubitt.

As was customary at the time, the bedrooms had no central heating and Camilla remembers how frost formed on the windows at night as a child.

Baths were often cold and rubber boots were a must when going out due to a snake infestation in the nearby orchard.

Still, it was a house full of warm childhood memories—and some more alarming ones, too.

It was at The Laines that Camilla almost died at the hands of her brother, the late Mark Shand.

Recalling the episode, he had explained:

‘[Camilla] was everyone’s favourite. She could do no wrong, and if she did, I was to blame. In addition, we were both extremely fat.

“At midnight I staggered naked down the moonlit hallway to my sister’s room and slowly pushed open the door. She lay on her bed like a giant blancmanger, her mouth wide open.’

But armed with a pocketknife, eight-year-old Mark only managed to stab himself, not his sister.

At the age of four and a half, Camilla started as a day pupil at nearby Dumbrell’s school.

A former student recalled, “The place was a time capsule, frozen in the days of Queen Victoria, grimly clinging to values ​​and virtues long gone.”

Another added: “The discipline was strict. If you left something, you had to wear it all day, including during meals.

“One of the older girls had to come to lunch with three hats. A youngster had a large sewing basket tied around her waist.’

Camilla continued her education at Queen’s Gate School in Kensington and completed her schooling in Switzerland and France.

Despite traveling between different countries during her teenage years, Camilla always returned to The Laines.

Prince Charles and Camilla first started seeing each other when they were 22 and 23 respectively, before the Queen consort married her future husband Andrew Parker Bowles.

Prince Charles made numerous visits to East Sussex in the early 1970s during his on-again, off-again relationship with Camilla.

However, their secret meetings were usually held at her grandmother’s house, Hall Place in West Meon nearby.

Even as she got older, The Laines remained a point of reference.

When it became clear that Charles and Camilla had resumed their relationship, even though they were still married (Charles to Diana, Camilla to Andrew), The Laines was the setting for another drama.

It was supposedly there in the Laines that Major Shand confronted Prince Charles about the intense public criticism of his daughter after the release of taped telephone conversations proving the truth of their affair.

Major Shand is said to have pointed out that while Charles was protected by the Royal Family, Camilla had become more or less Enemy No. 1, placing her under house arrest.

The major is said to have yelled furiously at the future king, “So what are your intentions with my daughter,” leaving Charles in tears.

But none of this was true. It later turned out that the story was made up by one of Camilla’s friends, the late Charles Benson had sold the story to fund his gambling addiction.

Today, Camilla is one of the hardest-working royals in the country, and her husband praised the “brilliant” way she took on the challenge of joining the royal family on their 10th birthday.

When The Laines went back on the market in 2015, it was speculated that Charles would buy the property for her as a safe haven for Camilla.

But it never happened. Instead, Camilla continues to use her private home, Ray Mill House, near Chippenham, Wiltshire, not far from Charles’s home, Highgrove in neighboring Gloucestershire.

Camilla bought Ray Mill in 1996 for £850,000 after her split from Parker Bowles. It remains to this day a place where she can invite friends and family and where there is room for her grandchildren to run around.

The Queen Consort is known to feel at home in the six-bedroom Ray Mill, with insiders saying she can “kick off her shoes,” enjoy a glass of red wine, and walk around in her dressing gown.

As Camilla told Monty Don in an interview with Country Life in July, “It’s my sanctuary, the only place where I can fully relax on my own terms.”

Even though many of her most powerful memories still lie in a completely different house, many miles away.