Queen Elizabeth II has turned 90 years old and has spent 64 of those years on the throne. We look at what properties – and other unusual assets – belong to the Queen, which belong to her title and which don't really belong to the monarch at all.
The Queen's portfolio is divided into her personally owned properties and the assets that belong to the reigning monarch – which mostly fall under the Crown Estate and the Duchy of Lancaster – even though the queen or king cannot sell these assets.
However, Sandringham House, the royal home in Norfolk, belongs personally to Queen Elizabeth, who inherited it from her father, King George VI.
Queen Elizabeth II also inherited Balmoral Castle from her father and the Aberdeenshire estate is part of her private portfolio.
The Queen is the owner of an 18,433-hectare private estate called The Duchy of Lancaster. The inherited portfolio is considered to be the private property of the Queen – even though she cannot sell it – and the profits fund the Queen's private and public expenses.
A significant portion of the income comes from the Savoy Estate in London. It covers the area between the Strand to the north, Somerset House to the east, the Embankment to the south and the Savoy Hotel to the west.
The Duchy of Lancaster also includes acres of rural land in England and Wales. This is spread across Cheshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Staffordshire and the South. It also includes the Peak District village of Castleton.
About a dozen historic properties are owned by the Duchy of Lancaster, including the Savoy Chapel in London, Pickering Castle in Yorkshire and Lancashire Castle.
The Queen is also the legal owner of everything that falls under the Crown Estate, but she does not have any managerial or controlling rights and is not entitled to the revenues. The Crown Estate is a property portfolio worth £11.5bn that "belongs" to the reigning monarch while they are on the throne, but surplus revenues go to the Treasury. It owns almost the entire freehold to Regent Street.
The Crown Estate's central London portfolio also includes almost half of the buildings in St James's, where it is currently investing £500m.
About 20 retail parks, shopping centres and leisure destinations are part of the Crown Estate's regional portfolio – making it the UK’s fourth-largest owner of directly owned shopping parks. These include Oxford’s Westgate Centre, Leicester's Fosse Shopping Park, Exeter’s Princesshay and Worcester’s Crown Gate Centre.
Occupied royal residences such as Buckingham Palace are part of the Royal Estate – so they are effectively owned by the reigning monarch and are looked after by the Royal Household.
Windsor Castle – the largest inhabited castle in the world – is also owned by the Occupied Royal Palaces Estate, meaning it belongs to the reigning monarch although she or he does not have controlling or financial rights.
The Royal Parks are owned in a similar fashion and are hereditary possessions of the reigning monarch. They are managed by an organisation called The Royal Parks, which is part of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport – except Windsor Great Park, which is part of the Crown Estate.
One of the world's largest selections of art, the Royal Collection contains thousands of paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, tapestries, furniture, ceramics, books, metal works, armour, jewellery and other historical titbits – such Queen Victoria's sketchbook, from 1861. The Collection belongs to the reigning monarch and it cannot be sold by the king or queen on the throne.
The Royal Collection also includes the crown jewels, which are kept at the Tower of London.
UK law stipulates that the reigning monarch owns whales, sturgeons and porpoises within three miles of Britain's shore.
The Queen also owns all unmarked mute swans in open water – although she only exercises this right on certain stretches of the Thames. Every July, a swan census is conducted in a process called "Swan Upping", when swans are caught, ringed and released.
Reference: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/04/21/how-much-of-the-uk-does-the-queen-own/swans/