Sandringham House is a country house on 8,000 hectares (20,000 acres) of land near the village of Sandringham in Norfolk, England. The house is privately owned by the British Royal Family and is located on the royal Sandringham Estate, which lies within the Norfolk Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The house was first opened to the public in 1977, and there is a museum with displays of Royal life and Estate history. About 600 acres (240 ha) are a country park, open to the public. Other buildings on the estate are York Cottage and Anmer Hall.
Along with Balmoral Castle, Sandringham House is the private property of the British royal family and not part of the Crown Estate. Their succession became an issue in 1936, when Edward VIII abdicated as king. Being legacies Edward had inherited from his father, George V, the estates did not automatically pass to his younger brother George VI on abdication. George, during his reign, made periodic payments to Edward as compensation for Balmoral and Sandringham, but transactions between royals generally being secret, it is not known whether title was actually transferred. Under the doctrine of sovereign immunity, no British court has power to dispossess a sovereign from the possession of real estate, since the sovereign may not be sued in his own courts without his consent.
The estate is also home to York Cottage, built by Edward VII soon after he moved in; York Cottage was also a favourite of George V. Anmer Hall on the grounds is a Georgian house that was at one point the country home of the Duke of Kent. When Prince Carl, the future King Haakon VII of Norway, and Princess Maud were married in July 1896, Appleton House was a wedding gift to them from the bride’s parents, the Prince and Princess of Wales. The gift was intended to provide the newly married couple with a place to stay whenever they visited England. The Prince of Wales wrote to his Danish brother-in-law, Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark, “I have given Maud and Charles a small house, their own country retreat – about one mile from here – they will always have a pied-à-terre when they come over to England. I know they will appreciate this very much.”
Appleton House no longer exists. For many years the house stood unused. Its last known inhabitants were King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, who lived in the house during a visit to Norfolk during World War II (1939–1945). A 1968 newspaper article with the headline “The Queen’s empty house” reported that a large anti-air raid structure had been constructed around the property during WWII and that this was unattractive and expensive to remove. Since it would have been costly to restore the property to a habitable state, Appleton House was torn down in July 1984.
