Sunninghill Park

Sunninghill Park is a country house and estate of some , located north of Sunninghill, lying between Ascot and the southern boundary of Windsor Great Park in Berkshire, England. It was the official residence of the Duke of York from 1990 until 2004.

First house

Sunninghill Park was originally part of Windsor Forest until 1630 when King Charles I granted it to Thomas Carey. In circa 1633, it was purchased by Sir Thomas Draper and sold in 1769 by his great grandson, Thomas Draper Baber, to Jeremiah Crutchley, whose family owned it until perhaps the death of Percy Edward Crutchley in 1940. The first significant house was built on the estate in the late Georgian period in the early 19th century, being a stucco building of two stories with later additions.

It served as the headquarters of the American Ninth Air Force from November 1943 to September 1944. The Crown Estate Commissioners purchased the property in 1945, from the late Philip Hill. The main house was made available to Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II) and her future husband Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, for after their marriage in November 1947, but the house burned down on 30 August 1947 before they could occupy it, so they rented Windlesham Moor instead. In the mid-1960s the site was considered for a new home for Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, but this did not happen.

Second house

In 1988 the walled garden of some was purchased from the Crown...
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