The close relationship between the late Queen Elizabeth II and Sarah Ferguson was demonstrated when Her Majesty bought a £1.5million home in Surrey for Sarah to live in with her two daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, as part of her divorce settlement with Prince Andrew in 1996.
Birch Hall is a sprawling estate originally built in 1740 and located in a charming village in Surrey. The Surrey-based home was a pad many would dream of and included seven bedrooms, five acres of land, an outdoor heated swimming pool, and even a tennis court.
Despite the supportive gesture from the late Queen, Sarah reportedly refused to move into the home as she would be unable to keep up with the huge maintenance costs, meaning that the home stayed empty for two years until it was sold for £1.5 million in 1999.
Instead, the family continued to live together at Sunninghill Park, before Sarah Ferguson and Prince Andrew moved to Royal Lodge in Windsor, where they both currently reside.
After the rejection of Birch Hall, it was sold in 1999 and estate agents said it was “due to a change of circumstance” as reported by The Sun. It is thought the money from the sale was placed in a trust for Eugenie and Beatrice to use when they were older.
In 2016, Birch Hall was listed on the market for £4.2million, after being renovated with even more jaw-dropping features than it originally had. Its latest owners added a media and games room, an orangery, and a home gym.
Andrew Russell from estate agency Strutt and Parker told the Daily Mail: “The owners bought it from the trustees acting for the Queen in 1999. The trustees bought it in 1997 for the princesses and I imagine it was chosen because it’s a pretty house in a popular village and the gardens are a real draw, it’s more like parkland. But they never moved in.”
When Birch Hall went up for sale in 2016, the estate agent also explained how it was the “best of north Surrey’s village houses”. He added: “There’s not that many that come on the market. It’s a proper country house with five acres of grounds.
“The house itself is a very attractive and imposing-looking property. Some of the rooms are really quite dramatic, with high ceilings and full floor-to-ceiling sash windows.”
“It’s got a swimming pool, tennis court and beautiful specimen trees dating from Victorian times in the garden.”