Meghan Markle And Prince Harry’s New Home Offers Good, Bad, And Ugly Points To Ponder

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are slated to make Frogmore Cottage their main residence early next year. Frogmore Cottage is more like a mansion than a cottage as it offers 10 bedrooms.

This countryside residence has served as a retreat for the royal family for more than 300 years and a lot of water has gone under the bridge in all that time. This move comes with good points, a few bad points, and it’s also been the site for an ugly piece of history.

Prince Harry and Meghan need to wait for the completion of major renovations on the structure before moving in. Frogmore Cottage is getting revamped into a one-family luxury home. The dwelling was previously sectioned off to make several separate living quarters for royal staff.

When it comes to the good points of Frogmore Cottage, once this dwelling is revamped, Meghan and Harry will have a brand-new luxurious home. Their humble abode will offer many rooms, including a nursey, gym, and a yoga studio.

This property already holds fond memories for the couple as it was the location of their engagement photo shoot. Meghan Markle and Prince Harry also hosted their evening wedding reception there.

This move will get the couple out of the congested Kensington Palace and into the countryside. This is also considered a good point of this move for Meghan and Harry.

With Meghan’s mom expected to spend more time with the couple once the baby’s born, Frogmore Cottage gives them lots of room. Their new place offers much more room than the cottage they currently live in at Kensington Palace.

This move offers some bad points as well when it comes to commuting time. With the couple at Kensington Palace, their offices are just a stone’s throw away. This move will come with a 45-minute commute to their official offices, which they intend to keep at Kensington Palace.

While this cottage is wrapped up in royal history, Cosmopolitan suggests, history comes with “potential ghosts” of those royal family members buried on the grounds. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, as well as Edward VIII and his American wife Wallis Simpson, are buried on the Frogmore House grounds.

The name of the estate comes from the extraordinary amount of frogs that also call Frogmore grounds home. For little kids with butterfly nets, this could be a good thing as kids love to catch frogs. For those who find the croaking of frogs annoying, this could offer a rather annoying aspect of a home sweet home.

Frogmore Cottage is steeped in history and part of that history is ugly. According to People Magazine, a dark piece of history for Meghan and Harry’s new home dates back to the death of Queen Victoria.

Victoria’s trusted aide, Abdul Karim, was the first Indian member of the royal household. Victoria enjoyed his company and she would often sit and talk with Abdul at both her homes. When European royalty came to see the queen, she’d often take them to Abdul’s cottage so they could have tea with him and his wife.

Jealousy and racism played a part in what happened, bringing an end to Abdul’s time at Frogmore Cottage. According to People Magazine, just hours after Queen Victoria’s body was laid to rest in the Royal Mausoleum on the grounds, Abdul was the target of a very cruel uprising.

He was confronted by a group consisting of senior royals and courtiers who came to his home demanding his letters from Queen Victoria be destroyed. A raid on Abdul and his wife’s home resulted in all Victoria’s letters gathered and burned. All Abdul could do was watch.

This is a moment of dark history that hangs over Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s new home. It is an ugly time for Frogmore Cottage, which was Abdul’s home for about 10 years. After the queen’s death, he was sent back to Agra, India.

Queen Victoria was ahead of her time as she was open to other races and people, said Sharbani Basu, the author of the book Victoria & Abdul: The True Story of the Queen’s Closest Confidant. This 2010 book inspired the 2017 movie starring Judi Dench. Basu calls this time “a bit of dark history.”