Frogmore Cottage STILL empty more than a year after Harry and Meghan left – as Andrew ‘refuses’ to downsize lodge

FROGMORE Cottage is still uninhabited more than a year after Harry and Meghan were kicked out – and Andrew is said to be refusing to leave his accommodation.

Palace officials at the annual Sovereign Grant briefing said there were no new tenants at the Grade II Crown Estate property at Windsor Home Park.

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Prince Harry, 39, was said to have stayed in a hotel on recent visits to the UK rather than in a royal residence.

The Sussexes have been asked to remove any remaining possessions from their UK home near Windsor Castle in 2023, just weeks after the duke criticized his family in his controversial memoir Spare.

A palace official said: “Throughout the year Frogmore Cottage has remained empty.

“I don’t think at this point I would speculate on who the future occupants of the house will be.”

He added: “The Sovereign Grant was fully reimbursed for the renovation costs of Frogmore Cottage when it was initially provided to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and therefore there is no cost to the Sovereign Grant other than some routine maintenance, but it would be necessary for either building.”

In 2019, royal accounts showed that Harry and Meghan, 42, paid £2.4 million to cover renovations and rent for their home.

It was previously reported that the disgraced Duke of York, 64, was offered the much smaller Frogmore Cottage in a bid to relocate it from the larger Royal Lodge.

But Andrew is said to have signed a 75-year lease on the Royal Lodge mansion in 2003.

Frogmore was a gift from the late Queen to the Sussexes, but after moving there following Prince Archie’s birth, they moved to the US, using the property only a few times afterwards.

In June this year, The Sun revealed that King Charles wants to rent Royal Lodge for £1 million a year when he finally gets his younger brother to leave.

Andrew has rejected other homes on offer and is relying on his “cast iron rent”, which includes the condition that the dilapidated £30m lodge in Windsor Great Park is kept in good condition.

The 75-year-old monarch is said to have redoubled his efforts to oust the disgraced duke – with insiders branding the standoff a “siege of the Royal Lodge”.

Andrew is now said to spend all day “watching TV in a dark room”, like a prisoner in his “ramshackle” house.

The duke has now become a “prisoner of his own pride” as he refuses to give in to his brother’s wishes, a friend said. The times.

But this prison is falling apart because Royal Lodge is “in need of major repairs”, estimated to cost around £400,000 a year.

The stately home is in Windsor State Park, Berks, several miles south of Windsor Castle.

Andrew moved after the Queen Mother’s death in 2002.

Very little work has been carried out on the property since Andrew spent £7 million on repairs when he moved in.

The royal, who no longer has official duties, shares the sprawling 30-bedroom Windsor mansion with just his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson.

Prince Andrew lost his public funding when he stepped down as a senior royal due to sexual abuse allegations.

As part of the loss of its public funding, it also lost the protection of the £3 million a year taxpayer-funded Metropolitan Police, who were replaced by private security officers.

The monarch is said to be increasingly reluctant to continue paying out of his own pocket to fund Andrew’s lavish lifestyle – and has threatened to withdraw more than £4million a year he allegedly provides.

It has been reported that Prince Andrew plans to bequeath the lease of Royal Lodge to his two daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, upon his death.

Podcaster Svar Nanan-Sen said on The Royal Record podcast: “A report this week discussed that a possible motivation for Andrew’s holding out is that he sees the Royal Lodge as part of Beatrice and Eugenie’s heritage.

“The contract still has 54 years left, Andrew is 64, so there is a strong possibility that at some point this could be passed on to his daughters.”

According to GB News royal correspondent Cameron Walker, Beatrice and Eugenie “don’t want Royal Lodge”.

Their two children, Princess Beatrice, 35, and Princess Eugenie, 34, live with their husbands, Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, 40, and Jack Brooksbank, 38, and children.

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