At the age of 32, following his fairytale wedding to Lady Diana Spencer in 1981, the prince and his new wife moved into London's Kensington Palace. Apartments 8 and 9, which were built by King George I for his mistress the Duchess of Kendal, were combined to create a new large home for the newlyweds. 

A sort of upmarket housing estate for royals, the palace dates from 1605 and was snapped up in 1689 for £20,000 ($26.3k) by King William III and Queen Mary II, who appointed Sir Christopher Wren to expand it. The palace served as the principal residence of Queen Anne, the subject of the Oscar-winning film The Favourite, but fell out of favour after her reign and was divided into apartments.

The estate is made up from the main mansion and a series of smaller properties scattered through the estate like Nottingham Cottage, where Prince Harry and Meghan Markle lived. The palace itself is divided into different apartments that traditionally serve as homes for non-ruling members of the immediate royal family, such as the Prince and Princess Michael of Kent in apartment 10.

Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales welcomed their first child Prince William on 21 June 1982. The trio are shown here in their sitting room, which was decorated in the dusky pink and duck egg blue hues Diana was so fond of.

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This image of the young family posing for a picture in their apartments in Kensington Palace was captured in 1983. A year later, Prince Harry was born, but the couple's marriage was already floundering. According to a recent Channel 4 documentary, Diana In Her Own Words, Charles was having an affair with his paramour Camilla Parker-Bowles as early as 1982. The royal couple eventually separated in 1992 and the prince moved to St James's Palace.

According to Paul Burrell's book, A Royal Duty. Diana would often sneak in suitors, using neighbour Princess Margaret's secret door to gain access to her apartment. The princess remained at the palace following her divorce from Prince Charles in 1996 until her untimely death a year later. Her spirit is still celebrated in the halls of Kensington Palace, as in this installation dedicated to her by designer Vivienne Westwood during a major restoration of the apartments in 2010. 

Prince Charles' London base following his separation from Princess Diana, York House was a historic wing of St James's Palace. It was built in 1736 for a previous Prince of Wales, Frederick Lewis, and was the home of the Duke of Cumberland, who later became King of Hanover, for several decades during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

After Princess Diana's tragic death in 1997, Prince Charles remained at the St James's Palace with his sons. Her apartment at Kensington Palace was stripped bare, and some of the contents were moved to York House.

Prince Charles resided at York House with Princes William and Harry until 2002. The property is said to comprise a number of low-pitched rooms on the ground floor, several small drawing rooms on the first floor, and servants' quarters on the top floor that have exceedingly low ceilings. 

Prince Charles bought his Gloucestershire country pile, Highgrove House, in 1980 – the year before he married Diana – for around £865,000 ($1.1 million) from Maurice Macmillan, the son of former UK Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan. The deal was slammed by Labour MP Reg Race who called it: “bloody outrageous on a day that the Government are cutting social security benefits for millions of people.” Princess Diana reportedly wasn't a fan of the nine-bedroom property, which she thought was too small and not private enough.

As with so many stately homes, the 18th-century Georgian mansion has something of a tragic history. In 1850, the granddaughter of the then owner died after her ballgown caught alight during a soirée, and in 1893, the house was gutted by fire. It was renovated not long after at a cost of £6,000 ($7,862). Princess Diana reportedly wasn't a fan of the nine-bedroom property, which she thought was too small and not private enough.

Nevertheless, Princess Diana spent many weekends with the family at Highgrove during the 1980s. Charles, who famously talks to his plants, set about creating a showcase organic garden in the estate's 37 acres of grounds. A champion of organic farming and sustainability long before it went mainstream, HRH believes gardening “helps heal damaged souls."

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The house was decorated by Princess Diana's favourite interior designer Dudley Poplak following the royal wedding in 1981. Poplak, who also revamped the Kensington Palace apartment, opted for a similar pastel colour scheme and a “youthful variant of the chintzy country-house look". In 1987, the house was remodelled by Prince Charles (pictured here with his staff in 1991) who commissioned several Neoclassical additions.

The prince also added the "Wall of Worthies" to the garden, which features several busts of historic figures. Following the divorce of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, Camilla Parker-Bowles (pictured at a reception at Highgrove in 2009) had the house redecorated, calling on the services of interior designer Robert Kime.

Prince Charles took ownership of another superb property after the death of the Queen Mother in 2002. Clarence House became his official London residence and home to Prince William and Prince Harry up to 2012. Located next to St James's Palace, the John Nash-designed building built for the Duke of Clarence in 1827. The four-storey house was also home to the Queen and Prince Philip for a time before HM ascended the throne.

Before the Prince of Wales moved into Clarence House, the mansion was refurbished with the British taxpayer footing the bill of £4.5 million ($5.9m), though the royal did splurge £1.6 million ($2.1 million) of his own money on soft furnishings. The prince allowed Google Arts & Culture into the house last year for a nose around, so you can see for yourself if it was money well-spent.

The prince has legions of staff, including multiple footmen who are responsible for escorting guests along specific corridors of Clarence House. 

In his 2006 book On Royalty, Jeremy Paxman wrote that at breakfast each morning the royal is said to be presented with seven boiled eggs cooked to varying degrees so he can choose the perfect one to eat. But Clarence House dismissed the claim in 2012, saying: "No, he doesn't and never has done, at breakfast or any other time."

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Prince Charles' love of Scotland led him to save a struggling stately home, Dumfries House. The magnificent Palladian country house was built in the 1750s for William Dalrymple, 5th Earl of Dumfries, by eminent architects John Adam and Robert Adam. The property was eventually passed down to John Crichton-Stuart, 7th Marquess of Bute, who struggled to pay for its upkeep.

As part of the project, an eco-village called Knockroon, similar to the prince's experimental new town of Poundbury in Dorset, is taking shape in the grounds of Dumfries House. The sustainable project is expected to take around 25 years to complete. The royal is shown here in 2011 unveiling the foundation stone.

Though Prince Charles has received much praise for saving the estate, the royal has been widely criticised in equal measure for pumping so much of the Duchy's cash into it. Some view Dumfries House as a vanity project for the prince but it has provided Cumnock locals with valuable employment opportunities. This picture shows the mansion's elegant drawing room restored to its former glory.

Chillingly, the Duchess of Cornwall is convinced the house was haunted: “It had a really eerie feel about it," she recently revealed in an ITV documentary. “There was definitely a ghost. Without a shadow of a doubt.” Camilla, the future queen consort pictured here walking her dog in the grounds, would freeze upon entering the property initially, but now feels the phantom has gone.

The Castle of Mey is situated in an especially isolated location on the windswept north coast of Scotland. Featured in the Netflix series The Crown, the castle, which was built between 1566 and 1572 for the 4th Earl of Caithness, was purchased by the Queen Mother in 1952 following the death of her husband King George VI.

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A faraway retreat for the recently widowed Queen Mother to mourn her late husband. She would escape to the much-loved Castle of Mey every August and October from 1955 until shortly before her death in 2002. Before moving in, the royal reinstated the original name – it was called Barrogill Castle when she bought it  – and restored the building, removing many of the 19th-century additions.

Still, the Queen Mother was in her element at the Scottish estate. Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall are equally enamoured with the castle, enjoying its seclusion and distance from civilisation.

The castle is popular with other royals too – Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex enjoyed a romantic break there in 2018. Whether they encountered the resident ghost is anyone's guess. The castle is rumoured to be haunted by the Green Lady, the ghost of Lady Fanny Sinclair, who is said to have had an affair with a stable hand in the 1880s. When her father found out, he banished the young man, and the heartbroken Lady Sinclair supposedly took her own life.

Prince Charles hired architect Craig Hamilton to transform the property. In keeping with the royal's philosophy of sustainability, the project was undertaken with the utmost care and attention by local craftsmen and women. The mansion's romantic ruins were preserved, lending an air of mystery to the estate.

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This surprisingly modest four-bedroom bungalow on St Mary's in the Isles of Scilly was the 20-year-old prince's first proper private property purchase. He bagged the compact bachelor pad in 1969 – it was constructed a few years before in the mid-1960s – and spent Christmas of that year there, no doubt pleased as punch to have a place of his own to chill out in.

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Once the prince was a married man with children however, he preferred to stay with his family in Tresco during their regular holidays to the gorgeous Scilly Isles. Here they are in June 1989 heading off for a bike ride. The bungalow was simply too small for the four of them, and the prince from that point onwards lent it out to relatives and friends. 

A local councillor voted against the renovation of the decidedly undistinguished 1960s property. Echoing criticism of some of the prince's other pet projects such as Poundbury and Knockroon, the council member described the revamp as a “pastiche”. In any case, the project went ahead and the property is now available to rent out.

Famed for its association with Count Dracula and brutal real-life ruler Vlad the Impaler, Transylvania is one of Prince Charles' favourite holiday destinations, believe it or not. The prince visited the region of Romania in 1998, not long after the death of Diana, and was smitten with the place – so much so that he went on to buy two properties there. 

The dinky Aunt Ida's Room has a traditional Transylvanian drawer bed, which sleeps two and is decorated in the same heritage style. Note the crucifix on the wall, which is clearly a must in this part of the world. If you're brave enough to stay at the cottage, you can expect to pay from £81 ($106) a night for the Prince's Room, and £66 ($86) per night for Aunt Ida's Room.

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