Monday, 13 January 2025

What The Royal's Own

While i was investigating who owned the South Downs, i came across an interesting article which explained The Crown Estate which is a collection of lands and holdings in the United Kingdom belonging to the British monarch.
The proceeds of the Estate, in part, funds the monarchy but is handed to the Government in exchange for an annual Sovereign Grant payment of around £130m to run the Royal household which is a decent portion of the annual Crown Estate profits of £312 million.
So what actually is owned by the Royals?
The whole of Regent Street and half of St James's in London's West End as well as Ascot Racecourse, over half of of the UK's beaches but only the the area between the high and low water mark weirdly, all of the UK's seabed up to 12-nautical-mile from the low water mark, the Crowngate Shopping Centre in Worcester, Silverlink Shopping Park in North Tyneside, Bath Road Shopping Park in Slough, Ocean Retail Park in Portsmouth,  Queensgate Centre in Harlow, Victoria Retail Park in Nottingham and the Morfa Shopping Park in Swansea.
They claim all wild mussels and oysters in Scotland but there's a commonly held belief that the family 'owns' all the swans in England is false, they only claim the mute swans and have since the 12th century to stop people eating them which was a thing back then and was a particular favourtie of Henvry VIII.
All this means that if you are shopping in Ocean Retail Centre in Portsmouth or catching oysters in Scotland then you are contributing to the Royal pay packet but if that swan chasing you around the lake isn't a mute swan, feel free to kick it in the bill because the Royals don't care about them ones.

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