King Charles Has Given His Eldest Grandchild Prince George Gifts Like a £18,000 Playhouse and a Field Named in His Honor

(Image credit: Getty)

published 27 August 2023

Did your grandfather ever get you a £18,000 gift? Well, Prince George can answer that question with a confident yes—and not only was the gift pricey, but it was also meaningful, too.

The gift was a Victorian style “Shepherd’s hut,” given to George on the occasion of his first birthday. The hut was installed at Charles’ Gloucestershire home and includes everything from a wood-burning stove to a day bed, The Mirror reports. The hut can be spotted by visitors during guided tours through Charles’ gardens and is thought to be a favorite play place of not just George but also Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis. Nearby the playhouse is a treehouse, constructed for their father, Prince William, in 1989, when the new Prince of Wales was seven. It has since been refurbished for William’s kids to play in.

Charles is a grandfather of five—George, Charlotte, and Louis, and Prince Harry’s children Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet. He is known to be a good gift giver, and, in addition to his playhouse, George has also been the recipient of another tribute from his grandfather. The King opened up on The One Show, answering questions about how we can all live more sustainably. It was filmed in Prince George’s Wood, which the King called “an old man’s obsession.”

“This was a rather empty field that the farm didn’t need anymore,” Charles said. “The great thing was that I managed to plant it the same year that my grandson was born, the eldest, George—so I thought I’d call it Prince George’s Wood. It is really for autumn color and a bit of spring, but autumn is the magic up here. So finding all the interesting trees and shrubs that turn an interesting color is half the battle.”

Prince George posing on steps for his tenth birthday portrait

A grandfather that buys five-figure playhouses and plants a field and names it in our honor? How sweet, indeed. And beyond expensive gifts, the King is working on something far more important to leave behind to all of his grandchildren: “It does seem to me insanity if we are going to bequeath this completely polluted, damaged, and destroyed world to them,” he said during a tour of Ghana in 2018. “All grandchildren deserve a better future.”

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Rachel Burchfield is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose primary interests are fashion and beauty, society and culture, and, most especially, the British Royal Family and other royal families around the world. She serves as Marie Claire’s Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor and has also contributed to publications like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, People, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W, among others. Before taking on her current role with Marie Claire, Rachel served as its Weekend Editor and later Royals Editor. She is the cohost of Podcast Royal, a show that was named a top five royal podcast by The New York Times. A voracious reader and lover of books, Rachel also hosts I’d Rather Be Reading, which spotlights the best current nonfiction books hitting the market and interviews the authors of them. Rachel frequently appears as a media commentator, and she or her work has appeared on outlets like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, and more.

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