{"id":2465952,"date":"2026-06-18T19:56:49","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T19:56:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2465952"},"modified":"2026-06-18T19:56:49","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T19:56:49","slug":"the-royal-home-william-and-kate-love-more-than-any-palace-and-the-con-man-who-once-owned-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/the-royal-home-william-and-kate-love-more-than-any-palace-and-the-con-man-who-once-owned-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The royal home William and Kate love more than any palace, and the con man who once owned it"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Of all the grand residences Prince William and Princess Kate could call home, the one they love most is a quiet Georgian house in the Norfolk countryside. Anmer Hall is where they sheltered through lockdown and where Kate reportedly retreated to heal during the hardest year of her life. It’s the very image of a peaceful family retreat. Yet the story of how this house came into royal hands runs through bankruptcy courts and one of the most notorious fraudsters in British history. Here’s the surprising tale of Anmer Hall.<\/p>\n

Anmer Hall was once owned by one of Britain’s most notorious con men<\/h2>\n

Here’s the twist almost nobody knows about William and Kate’s tranquil family home. According to History Hit<\/a>, the Anmer Hall estate was bought at auction in 1896 for \u00a325,000 by Ernest Terah Hooley, a famous serial fraudster, shortly before the first of his bankruptcies. The future King Edward VII, then the Prince of Wales, had wanted the property himself, and ultimately acquired it from Hooley at cost in 1898. It then became part of the Sandringham Estate. So the serene house where a future king now raises his children passed into royal hands only because a Victorian swindler needed to offload it.<\/p>\n

Anmer Hall was built in 1802, on the bones of a medieval village<\/h2>\n
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