Balmoral to Birkhall: The King's Scottish Homes
Beyond Balmoral itself, the King has a second beloved Scottish retreat: Birkhall, the cosy cottage on the estate where Charles and Camilla have long spent their time.
Everyone knows Balmoral, the grand Highland castle that has been the royal family’s beloved Scottish retreat since Queen Victoria’s day. Fewer people know Birkhall, the smaller, cosier house tucked away on the same vast estate that has long been King Charles’s own particular corner of Scotland. Together, Balmoral and Birkhall tell the fuller story of the King’s Scottish homes: one grand and public, the other intimate and personal.
For a man who has always found his deepest peace in the Highlands, Birkhall in particular represents something Balmoral, for all its grandeur, cannot quite offer: a smaller, more private house that feels genuinely like home. Its story is a lovely, lesser-known chapter of royal Scotland.
Here is the story of Balmoral and Birkhall: the castle and the cottage that together make up the King’s Highland world.
Balmoral Castle: the royal seat
Balmoral, purchased by Prince Albert for Queen Victoria in 1852 and rebuilt in the Scottish Baronial style the couple loved, remains the grandest of the royal family’s Scottish homes: a working estate of tens of thousands of acres, and the setting for the family’s traditional late-summer retreat every year.
It is the public face of royal Scotland: the Highland home where generations of the family have gathered, hunted, walked and found respite from official life, and the place where Queen Elizabeth II spent her final days. We tell its fuller story in Balmoral Castle: the King’s beloved Highland home.
Birkhall: the King’s own house
Tucked away elsewhere on the vast Balmoral estate sits Birkhall, a smaller and altogether cosier house that has been closely associated with Charles since long before he became King. Originally acquired for the royal family in the nineteenth century, it later became particularly linked with Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, who loved it dearly and spent much of her later life there.
When the Queen Mother died in 2002, Birkhall passed to Charles, then Prince of Wales, and it has been a cherished private retreat for him and Queen Camilla ever since. Unlike the grand, more formal Balmoral, Birkhall is intimate and unshowy: a proper Scottish country house rather than a castle, and by all accounts the King’s favourite place to simply be himself.
A house of gardens and painting
Birkhall’s charm lies partly in its gardens, which the King has taken a personal, hands-on interest in over many years, applying the same organic principles and painterly eye he brought to Highgrove. He is a keen watercolourist, and the soft Highland light and rolling grounds around Birkhall have long been a favourite subject.
It is a house that reflects the King’s private passions rather than his public role: gardening, painting, walking, and the quiet pleasures of Highland life away from any spotlight. That personal, lived-in quality is precisely what sets Birkhall apart from the grander, more ceremonial Balmoral.
The Queen Mother’s beloved retreat
Birkhall’s story is deeply entwined with Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, who came to love the house intensely across decades of visits, filling it with her own particular taste and warmth. Her long attachment to Birkhall gives the house a rich thread of family history quite distinct from Balmoral’s more public, dynastic story.
That inheritance clearly matters to King Charles, who has kept Birkhall very much as a private, family retreat rather than opening it to the public in the way Balmoral’s grounds and exhibition are. It remains one of the more private corners of the royal Scottish estates, precisely because it means so much.
Two homes, one Highland life
Together, Balmoral and Birkhall capture two sides of the royal relationship with Scotland: the grand, public Balmoral, where the whole family gathers each summer and where royal history has so often been made; and the smaller, private Birkhall, the King’s own particular retreat, rich with personal and family meaning.
It is a lovely example of how even within one great estate, there is room for both the ceremonial and the deeply personal: the castle for the family, the cottage for the King’s own heart. Our guide to Balmoral and the royal summer explores the wider traditions of the family’s Highland season.
Why these homes endure
Balmoral and Birkhall endure because together they show the full range of what a royal home can be: one built for gathering and tradition, the other for quiet, personal retreat. Both are rooted in the same deep royal love of the Scottish Highlands that began with Victoria and Albert and continues, undimmed, with King Charles today.
That is their enduring appeal: two houses, one Highland landscape, and a family that has never stopped finding its truest peace there. Browse more of our Royal Places & Events stories to explore the homes and places that shape royal life.
Frequently asked questions
What is Birkhall?
Birkhall is a smaller house on the Balmoral estate that was long associated with Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, who loved it dearly, and passed to King Charles III on her death in 2002. It remains his cherished, more private Scottish retreat.
Is Birkhall part of the Balmoral estate?
Yes. Birkhall sits on the wider Balmoral estate but is a distinct, smaller and more private house, separate from Balmoral Castle itself, where the King and Queen have long spent much of their time in Scotland.
Why does King Charles love Birkhall?
Birkhall offers King Charles a smaller, more intimate and personal retreat than the grander Balmoral Castle. It is closely linked to his beloved grandmother, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and reflects his own private passions for gardening and painting.
Who lived at Birkhall before King Charles?
Birkhall was closely associated with Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother for much of her later life. She loved the house deeply, and it passed to Charles, then Prince of Wales, following her death in 2002.
Can you visit Birkhall?
Birkhall is a private royal residence and is not generally open to the public in the way parts of the Balmoral estate are during the summer season. It remains one of the more private of the royal Scottish homes.
What is the difference between Balmoral and Birkhall?
Balmoral Castle is the grand, public seat of the family’s Highland summer, set on a vast working estate. Birkhall is a smaller, cosier house on the same estate, valued as a private, personal retreat rather than a ceremonial residence.
Details of Birkhall and Balmoral are drawn from widely published accounts of the royal Scottish estates; described as of 2026.
