With accession of Prince Charles to the throne, his eldest son has become the heir apparent, the Prince of Wales and the 25th Duke of Cornwall.
Along with this title, Prince William automatically inherits the Duchy of Cornwall, which has been an income stream for his father for more than half a century. This is thanks to the ownership of a landed estate of more than 52,000 hectares (128,000 acres), which also makes him one of England’s biggest landowners.
The Duchy of Cornwall owns land across 20 counties in England and Wales – the majority of it not in Cornwall – stretching from Devon to Kent, and Carmarthenshire to Nottinghamshire.
Much of the estate comprises farmland, but it also includes homes and commercial properties, forests, rivers, coastline and about – a third of the Dartmoor national park, which was once used for mining minerals such as tin and copper.
Some of the estate’s more unusual holdings include Oval cricket ground in central London – which has been leased by Surrey county cricket club since 1874 – as well as Dartmoor prison, and a plant nursery and garden centre at Lostwithiel in Cornwall. The duchy’s net assets were valued at more than £1bn at the end of March, the bulk of which came from investment property assets.
The duchy can trace its origins back almost 700 years, to 1337, when Edward III established a private estate that could provide independence to his son and heir, Prince Edward. A charter from the time ruled that every future Duke of Cornwall would be the eldest surviving son of the monarch.
King Charles III was not only heir to the throne since the age of three, but was also the longest-serving Duke of Cornwall in history, having marked 50 years running the estate in 2019. He took over the running of the estate and became entitled to receive its full income at the age of 21.
Under his leadership, the estate’s annual multimillion pound revenue was used to fund Charles’s “public, private and charitable activities”, according to the duchy’s website.
It credits Charles with requesting the estate was managed in a way that was “sustainable, financially viable and of meaningful value to the local community”.
His personal interests shaped the duchy’s work, through his interest in architecture and sustainability, including organic farming.
Charles was also behind the creation of Poundbury, the model village near Dorchester in Dorset, which is home to more than 3,000 people.
He also set up food company Duchy Organics more than three decades ago, in 1990, and many consumers may associate the estate’s name with Duchy-branded groceries, including fruit, vegetables and meat.
However, the brand ran into financial difficulties after the 2007 financial crisis, and was thrown a lifeline when it signed a licensing agreement with the retailer Waitrose in 2009. The brand now operates separately to the Duchy of Cornwall.
Now the duchy has passed to William, there will be questions over what path he will choose and how he may shape the estate.
He also inherits the residential development project at Nansledan, an extension to the town of Newquay in Cornwall, where more than 4,000 homes and a high street are being built in a project expected to last three decades.
Succession planning has clearly been taking place in recent years: the duchy’s most recent annual financial report states that William and some of his personal advisers “continued to attend many of the non-executive committees to learn more about the governance of the duchy and the various initiatives that the committees oversee, and to meet new members”.
Ownership of the estate has proven lucrative for Charles, and paid him an income of £21m for the year ending 31 March 2022, according to the duchy’s annual accounts.
There will be queries over whether William, the new Duke, will follow his father’s lead on tax paid on his duchy income.
Charles voluntarily paid the top rate of income tax – 45% – on the duchy’s earnings after the deduction of official expenditure, known as its “surplus”, which totalled £23m in the last financial year.
The duchy is not considered a company, meaning Charles was not liable for paying corporation tax, and in addition he was not considered liable for capital gains tax.
This has previously prompted criticism, including from MPs on parliament’s influential public accounts committee, which previously called for an investigation into the estate’s tax affairs.
In recent days, the owner of a Cornish tin mine, where the BBC television series Poldark was filmed, has hit out at the decision by the Duchy to launch legal proceedings against him over unpaid rent for the mine’s underground passages. The duchy is the owner of the mine’s mineral rights.
Prince William will now have to negotiate this and other matters, as he decides on the strategic direction for the Duchy under his control.
