The Cambridge family is on the cusp of an exciting new chapter. After living for almost a decade in Apartment 1A at Kensington Palace, Kate and William are leaving London and moving their brood into Adelaide Cottage in Berkshire, just a brisk 10-minute walk from Windsor Castle, where the Queen is now permanently based. On August 22, the Palace announced that the couple’s three children, Prince George, 9, Princess Charlotte, 7, and four-year-old Prince Louis, will all attend Lambrook School from the start of the new term in September.
It won’t be the first time that Lambrook—which was founded in 1860 and is situated in more than 50 acres of Berkshire countryside—has played host to royalty. In the 19th century the school was attended by Prince Christian Victor and Prince Albert of Schleswig-Holstein, both grandsons of Queen Victoria, who used to travel by carriage from Windsor Castle to the school to watch the boys’ plays and cricket games.
More than a century on, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will be making the short drive from Adelaide Cottage to cheer on their children at the school, where pupils enjoy golf (Lambrook has a nine-hole golf course), lacrosse, badminton and basketball, as well as more traditional British school sports like rugby, soccer, hockey and netball. Prince George is a soccer fan—like his dad, George supports Aston Villa—who joined Kate and William in the stands at Wembley last summer to watch England take on Italy in the Euro 2020 final. Princess Charlotte also threw her support behind the Lionesses ahead of their historic win over Germany last month. Their little brother Louis, meanwhile, could be seen clutching a cricket ball in photographs taken by Kate to mark his fourth birthday earlier this year.
Charlotte is also musically inclined—her mum revealed she’s taking piano lessons during a family outing to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations earlier this year, and Prince William has said his daughter “loves dancing.” She’ll be well catered to at Lambrook, which is home to a dedicated Performing Arts Centre. The school also has a 25-strong chapel choir that performs for the public in venues including Eton College Chapel, Prince William’s alma mater.
Extra-curricular activities aside, Lambrook’s academic program—which incorporates Latin and Greek as well as core subjects—is robust, and there is a well-trodden path from the prep school to Eton, on the other side of the Thames, along with other prestigious senior schools such as Charterhouse, Marlborough (where the Duchess of Cambridge was a pupil), and Harrow.
No doubt the Duke and Duchess are eager to secure the best possible education for their children, but Lambrook’s weekly “enrichment afternoons” likely appealed to Kate, who is a tireless advocate for the importance of nature and outdoor play in early years education, just as much as the school’s record of academic excellence. The sessions offer pupils the opportunity to complement their academic studies with everything from mountain biking to bee keeping, farming to fencing, polo to podcast making. According to the school’s website, “pupils are encouraged to choose something that interests them (without adult guidance) and to try a new enrichment activity each half term.”
Originally an all-boys preparatory school for boarders, Lambrook began accepting day pupils in 1992. It first opened to girls in the 1990s. Along with Queen Victoria’s grandsons, other notable former pupils include the sons of former Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith, the Nobel Prize-winning economist James Meade, brothers and Scotland rugby players Thom and Max Evans, and Alex Pettyfer, who starred with Channing Tatum in Magic Mike.
As well as being closer to William’s grandmother the Queen, who celebrated her 96th birthday this year, the Cambridge’s move to Windsor also means Kate’s parents, Carole and Michael Middleton, will be nearby. The Middletons’ Grade II-listed manor house, Bucklebury Manor, is just a 45-minute drive from Adelaide Cottage.