How Prince William and Kate’s Windsor home was once lived in by Princess Margaret’s chaperone-turned-lover: Inside Adelaide Cottage’s connection to royal scandal

It is the modest four-bedroom property in Windsor that has been the home of Prince William and Kate and their young family since 2022.

The Prince and Princess of Wales are said to be very happy at Adelaide Cottage – even though Prince Andrew’s home Royal Lodge is believed to have been earmarked for them.

But Adelaide Cottage has a far more intriguing past than its quaint pink walls suggest – for it was once the home of the man Princess Margaret was not allowed to marry.

Group Captain Peter Townsend lived there with his wife Rosemary and children in the 1940s, when he served as equerry to King George VI.

Teenage princesses Elizabeth and Margaret and their mother Queen Elizabeth used to take tea in the gardens of the cottage with the Townsends and their young sons.

Townsend and Margaret became romantically involved before his split from his wife in 1952 – but they deterred from marrying because of his status as a divorced man. 

He later wrote in his autobiography: ‘If her extravagant vivacity sometimes outraged the elder members of the household and of London society, it was contagious to those who still felt young – whether they were or not.’

‘She was a girl of unusual, intense beauty, confined as it was in her short, slender figure and centred about large purple-blue eyes, generous, sensitive lips and a complexion as smooth as a peach.

‘She was capable, in her face and in her whole being, of an astonishing power of expression. 

‘It could change in an instant from saintly, almost melancholic, composure to hilarious, uncontrollable joy.’

Nestled at the heart of the Crown Estate’s private 655-acre royal park, Adelaide Cottage was built in 1831 as a retreat for William IV’s wife Queen Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen. 

It was later known to be a favourite home of Queen Victoria, as she frequently enjoyed taking her breakfast there. 

The Wales family moved from Kensington Palace to Adelaide Cottage, located within Windsor Great Park, in the summer of 2022.  

The cottage underwent major renovations in 2015, which meant that Prince William and Kate did not need to shell out millions in remodelling the house. 

Additionally, four bedrooms were deemed sufficient since there are no live-in staff members. Instead, aides commute to the property as and when their services are needed.

The property is likely where Kate is spending much of her time as she continues cancer treatment.  

However, it’s possible that Prince William, Kate and their three children could one day relocate to Royal Lodge – if Prince Andrew agrees to move out.

The duke, who no longer has official duties after being forced to quit as a working royal following the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, shares the 30-room, £30million mansion with his ex-wife, Sarah, Duchess of York.

King Charles is said to be trying to get his brother to leave the property and move in to Frogmore Cottage – the former home of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

Battle of Britain pilot Townsend had a toddler son, Giles, and another on the way when he was made the King’s equerry in February 1944.

Adelaide cottage became the Townsends’ first proper marital home after three years of marriage amidst the chaos of the Second World War.

Despite its proximity to the monarch’s residence, the living conditions in the cottage were in stark contrast to its mightier neighbour.

Electricity was delivered to it via cables from Windsor Castle, but the current was so poor that only a vacuum cleaner and a small electric heater could be used at once.

The cottage’s interior was allegedly ‘gloomy’, with Victorian wallpaper and heavy furniture. A commentator in the 1950s described it as ‘pokey and unattractive’.

Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret visited when Townsend’s second son was born and King George VI was named as the child’s godfather. In the garden, they enjoyed a tea to mark the boy’s christening.

A 1958 report from the Daily Mail that recounted the occasion said: ‘It was the first of many Sunday visits. Princess Elizabeth liked to chat with Rosemary, while Princess Margaret played with the children on the lawn and Peter Townsend, off duty, sat back in a deckchair.

‘Sometimes the King and Queen arrived to collect their daughters, more often Peter ran them home himself. Princess Margaret never came to Adelaide Cottage unless she was accompanied by Princess Elizabeth or the Queen.’

Margaret was aged just 13 at the time of Townsend’s appointment but later admitted: ‘When he first appeared, I had a terrific crush on him.’

Although it remains unclear when the pair’s romance began, the affair became public knowledge in 1953, when Margaret was seen tenderly removing a piece of fluff from Townsend’s lapel during the Queen’s Coronation. 

The previous year, the Townsends had divorced. It is widely believed that Margaret began her dalliance with Townsend years before the Queen’s Coronation.

The pair were in near-constant company during a three-month State tour of South Africa, which began in February 1947. Townsend would then have been aged 32, whilst Margaret was 17.

Part of the equerry’s role was to chaperone the young princess.

Margaret later told a confidante: ‘We rode together every morning in that wonderful country, in marvellous weather. That’s when I really fell in love with him.’

Townsend and his family left Adelaide Cottage in 1952, when they divorced.

However, his romance with Margaret ultimately never resulted in the marriage that they both desperately sought.  

Her sister the Queen had to consent to her marriage to a divorced man, but the monarch’s status as Head of the Church of England complicated things. 

With both the royal family and the British government still recovering from Edward VIII’s abdication in 1936 so he could marry divorcee Wallis Simpson, Queen Elizabeth was advised it would be unconstitutional for her to approve the match. 

It was decided that Townsend would be sent away to work as an air attaché for the British Embassy in Brussels for a year, after which, the couple was asked to wait another year.

Although Margaret had now turned 25, they were still denied the right to wed, and the government – led by Prime Minister Anthony Eden – stated that if she married her love then she would be stripped of her royal privileges as well as her income. 

Margaret announced in late  1955 that she and Townsend would not marry. 

A statement drafted in Princess Margaret’s name read: ‘I would like it to be known that I have decided not to marry Group Captain Peter Townsend.

‘I have been aware that, subject to my renouncing my rights of succession, it might have been possible for me to contract a civil marriage. 

‘But, mindful of the Church’s teaching that Christian marriage is indissoluble, and conscious of my duty to the Commonwealth, I have decided to put these considerations before any others.’

Having returned to Belgium heartbroken after Margaret’s decision, Townsend went on to marry a 20-year-old heiress named Marie-Luce Jamagne in 1959 and the couple went on to have two daughters and one son.

Writing in his autobiography, Tim and Chance, Townsend described how he and Margaret became romantically close.

‘During 1952, Princess Margaret and I found increasing solace in one another’s company,’ he said. 

‘The year began with the Princess’s grief, caused by the sudden death of her father; it continued with the change in her own family situation – living alone with her mother (whom she adored) – and the steady deterioration in mine; it ended in the break-up of my family. 

‘If on the material plane, as well as temperamentally, the Princess and I were worlds apart, we responded, in our feelings and emotions, as one.’

Before the Wales’ moved in, Adelaide Cottage was home to Simon Rhodes, the son of the Queen’s cousin and friend Margaret Rhodes.

A source claiming that Harry and Meghan had been offered Adelaide Cottage by the Queen said in 2018: ‘There are seven gated entrances and exits to Windsor Castle so the newlyweds could come and go without worrying about being photographed.’

Adelaide Cottage was built on the site of the old head keeper’s lodge on the north slopes of Home Park.

According to Historic England, the public body which cares for England’s historic buildings and places, Adelaide Cottage is a ‘picturesque’ two-storey stucco-faced dwelling with casement windows, and elaborate pierced bargeboards edging the roof.

The principal bedroom has a coved ceiling decorated with gilded dolphins and rope ornament reused from the 19th century royal yacht Royal George, and a good marble Graeco-Egyptian fireplace.

The south entrance is flanked by paired diagonally set chimneys with stepped bases, and the house has a porte-cochere, a canopied entrance to provide shelter.

There is a verandah with bargeboard eaves on the east side.

Its entrance bears the initials AR (Adelaide Regina) and the date of 1831.

It sits next to another property called Adelaide Lodge, which is empty and inhabitable due to problems with it not being underpinned.

Queen Victoria often visited the cottage for breakfast or tea, according to the Royal Collection Trust.

Her beloved King Charles spaniel Dash, whom she would dress in a scarlet jacket and blue trousers, was buried there after his death in 1840.

He was honoured with an effusive inscription on his grave reading: ‘Here lies Dash, The favourite spaniel of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, In his 10th year, His attachment was without selfishness, His playfulness without malice, His fidelity without deceit, Reader, If you would be beloved and die regretted, Profit by the example of Dash.’

Adelaide Cottage’s four bedrooms mean that William and Kate’s full-time nanny, Maria Teresa Turrion Borrallo, lives elsewhere, as do other staff including the housekeeper and the chef, giving the Wales more privacy.

The location offers the family easy access to the private 655-acre Home Park and the historic royal estate’s network of drives, gardens, farms, nearby trout stream, Frogmore House and Royal Mausoleum.

Other benefits include neighbouring Windsor Great Park, which spans more than 5,000 acres, with its Long Walk leading up to Windsor Castle, deer park and woodland trails in the Valley Gardens.