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The value of the UK's royal palaces

(Jean Carlo Emer/Unsplash)
Buckingham Palace is the only UK property that tops the billion pound mark. Photo: Jean Carlo Emer/Unsplash

Have you ever wondered how much the British royal family's extravagant palaces are worth?

By analysing factors such as size, average house price per square metre, and cultural and historical value, mortgage experts at money.co.uk have valued the combined worth of British royal properties within the UK at over £4bn ($5.4bn).

The iconic Buckingham Palace is the UK's most valuable royal property. Being the Queen's primary residence and the only UK palace to top the billion mark, the experts valued it at £1.3bn.

Its 77,000 square metre size and central London location helps push its value up considerably. On the average UK salary, and with a 10% deposit of £130m, it would take just over 44,000 years to buy it outright.

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Windsor Castle comes in second at £947.8m. Being the UK’s second largest palace, its 54,825 square metre grounds mean it would take the average UK worker over 31,000 years to own it.

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If you haven't got that sort of time on your hands, Sandringham House — one of the Queen’s two private residences — is valued at £777.2m and would take just 25,908 years to buy outright.

At the other end of the scale, the smallest royal palace — and the most affordable — is Tamarisk, named after the trees that obscure the cottage on St Mary's in the Isles of Scilly.

At just 76 square metres it would cost a much more affordable £1.3m but still take 44 years to buy outright with the average UK salary.

Meanwhile, if Meghan Markle and Prince Harry were to purchase their previous home, Frogmore House, following their departure from the royal family, they would have had to fork out an estimated £69.3m.

The pair have now settled in their Santa Barbara home, where they purchased the property for a more “modest” £10.9m.

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The research also found the most valuable royal palaces across the world, with the Louvre Palace in Paris coming in at number one. Although now the home to the world-famous Musée du Louvre, it was originally built as a castle in the late 13th century. The experts estimated it to be worth over £4.5bn.

In second place is Beijing's Forbidden City. With 9,999 rooms, it is one of the most complex builds in the world and would be listed for an eye-watering £3.5bn.

The third place on the podium belongs to Royal Palace of Caserta, valued just behind the Forbidden City at £3.4bn. Although the biggest in size at 235,000 square metres, the average price of an Italian apartment pushes its value down.

Nine in 10 of the world’s largest royal residencies are based in Europe, with and average cost of £2.3bn and an average grounds size of 146,265 square metres, the research found.

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