While Glamis Castle’s most famous royal link is as the childhood home of the Queen Mother, a family fondness for the Angus landmark was passed down by Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon to her two daughters, including the Queen.
The Queen’s connection with the family seat of the Earls of Strathmore
and Kinghorn remained strong throughout her life and she made frequent official and private visits.
Around the grounds where her mother had grown up, the young woman destined to be Queen also enjoyed carefree times in her childhood, running around the castle gardens and charming long-serving staff of the household.
Mary, the Dowager Countess of Strathmore, whose late husband, the
17th Earl, was a first cousin of the Queen, said she believed she had the “happiest” memories of time at Glamis.
“She was here when Princess Margaret was born and we have photographs of her as a young girl jumping over the hedges in the garden,” said the Dowager Countess.
“The Queen Mother came frequently to Glamis, but the Queen and Prince
Philip also made a number of visits, both official and privately, and they all attended my husband’s funeral in 1987.
“She met a lot of the staff that day and spoke to them about her memories of being at Glamis.”
The Dowager Countess added: “I remember that when Prince Edward was 17 and learning to drive, she asked if she could bring the two younger boys (Andrew and Edward) to lunch at Glamis, and after lunch they went to the top of the castle.
“She had done that as a child, galloping all the way up the 143 steps.
“She knew Glamis well from her earliest days and it was a place which she felt was a home where she didn’t have to be a royal.”
Despite the last Glamis visit being more than three decades ago, and the previous Forfar engagement involving the Queen and Prince Philip a 2004 mini-tour of Angus, her fondness for Glamis was illustrated by the enthusiasm with which she personally approved the loan of royal robes for an important castle exhibition in 2017.
The display included the gowns worn by herself and Margaret at the Westminster Abbey coronation of King George VI and Elizabeth of Glamis in 1937.
Conversation