Prince William and Kate stayed on the island of Anglesey for about three years when William was an RAF rescue pilot.
Although the Royal Family does not have a house in Wales, Prince William and Princess Kate lived on the Isle of Anglesey, also known as Ynys Môn, from 2010 to 2013 due to William’s profession as a search and rescue pilot with the Royal Air Force (RAF).
Although the couple was not engaged when William was stationed on the Welsh island in 2010, Kate moved in with her boyfriend and they shared a property, but nearly a decade later, Kate confessed she felt lonely living there.
Kate described her experience in Anglesey in just seven words: “I was so isolated, so cut off.”
Kate revealed her true feelings while speaking openly at a children’s centre in Cardiff in 2020: “I was chatting to some of the mums, I had just had George and William was still working with search and rescue, so we came up here when George was a tiny, tiny little baby, in the middle of Anglesey. It was so isolated, so cut off, I didn’t have my family around me, he was doing night shifts, so if only I’d had a centre like this at a certain time.”
Kate could go about her daily business with little notice because much of Anglesey is rural, with just small settlements and farms. The couple lived in Bodorgan Hall, a four-bedroom mansion.
Kate and William lived in Bodorgan Hall, a four-bedroom farmhouse just outside the village of Bodorgan, with a locally sourced Welsh slate roof and a number of wide windows that provided an amazing view of the adjacent sea and the Eryri Mountains.
The property is classified as an Area of Outstanding Beauty and an Environmentally Sensitive Area, owing to its surrounding woodland and seashore. It also includes a circular dovecote, a barn, expansive gardens, a lawn, and a deer park.
Kate and William paid only £750 per month in rent to Sir George Meyrick, who owns the mansion and the grounds it sits on, the largest estate on Anglesey.
The Wales couple returned to Bodorgan Hall after their wedding in 2011 and again after Prince George was born, but they departed Anglesey in 2013, when George was a little older, to live at Kensington Palace.
Speaking of his and Kate’s trip to Anglesey, Prince William said: “This island has been our first home together, and it will always be an immensely special place for us both. Catherine and I look forward to returning again and again over the coming years with our family.”
“I know that I speak for Catherine when I say that I have never in my life known somewhere as beautiful and as welcoming as Anglesey.”
The RAF Valley on Anglesey, North Wales, is the RAF’s only station in Wales and home to the No 4 Flying Training School (4FTS), which trains the UK’s next generation of fighter pilots. Crews at the base are also trained for mountain and sea missions around the globe.
During his time in Anglesey, the Duke of Cambridge participated in numerous and frequently risky rescue missions, as well as a six-week deployment to the Falkland Islands.
