Prince William inherits the £1 billion Duchy of Cornwall estate

Previously the Duke of Cambridge and now the Duke of Cornwall, Prince William has inherited a cross-country landed estate which contributed £21 million to his fathers’s income last year. 

The Duchy of Cornwall is a landed estate with more than 52,000 hectares (128,000 acres), placing William in the top 10 biggest landowners in England, after companies like United Utilities and the National Trust. 

However, the majority of this land isn’t even in Cornwall, as it stretches from Devon to Kent, and Carmarthenshire to Nottinghamshire, as reported by The Guardian. 

As well as farmland, which constitutes the majority of the estate’s land, there are also homes and commercial properties, forests, rivers, and coastline. About a third of the Dartmoor national park – once used for mining materials such as tin and copper – also belongs to this property, including Dartmoor prison. 

The estate also includes an Oval cricket ground in central London, leased by Surrey county cricket club for more than a century. 

Along with the Duchy’s acres of land, William will also inherit the residential development project at Nansledan, which will produce more than 4,000 homes and a high street as an extension to Newquay in Cornwall. 

Although he was not obligated to as the Duchy is not considered a company, Charles, who took over the estate in 2019, opted to pay the top rate of income tax – 45% – on the Duchy’s earnings. It is now up to Prince William to determine how matters like this will be dealt with. 

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