Princess Diana “Didn’t Like” the Royal Family’s Favorite Summer Retreat for This Surprising Reason, Her Chef Explains
Princess Diana “Didn’t Like” the Royal Family’s Favorite Summer Retreat for This Surprising Reason, Her Chef Explains
Rachel BurchfieldTue, July 21, 2026 at 3:00 PM UTC
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Princess Diana in Washington, D.C. on June 17, 1997.Credit: GettyThe Gist -
At the end of every summer, the royal family retreats to Balmoral Castle in Scotland, their beloved getaway.
Queen Elizabeth was thought to consider Balmoral her favorite place on earth—but Princess Diana was not a fan.
Her former royal chef Darren McGrady tells InStyle the surprising reason why the former Princess of Wales didn’t enjoy Balmoral due to a childhood accident.
In just a few weeks, the royal family will descend en masse to Balmoral Castle, their late summer retreat nestled in the Scottish Highlands.
It was said to be the late Queen Elizabeth’s favorite place on earth, but there was one member of the royal family who wasn’t as keen on it—Princess Diana, according to the former Princess of Wales’s royal chef Darren McGrady.
Balmoral Castle in Scotland.Credit: Getty
“It wasn’t her,” McGrady tells InStyle. “She wasn’t an outdoor person or into horse riding, because she fell off a horse when she was young. For her, the closest she would get was pulling and walking [Prince] William with his little Shetland pony, Smokey, around the estate. That was as close as she got to the horses.”
Diana, McGrady adds, “would rather have been at Kensington [Palace, her home in London], where she could go to Harvey Nichols shopping or lunch with friends. She loved all that.”
“She didn’t like Balmoral at all,” he continues.
Prince Charles and Princess Diana at Balmoral.Credit: Getty Images
That said, Queen Elizabeth “loved Balmoral,” McGrady says, “and would go into Balmoral at the start of summer, hang up her tiara on the front gates and put on a headscarf—then she was Granny and Mum.”
At Balmoral, members of the royal family “would like to cook,” the chef explains. “They would go off and take barbecues at Balmoral. Prince Philip was the most passionate of cooks in the kitchen. He loved to cook and cared about foods and recipes.”
“He would come in and say, ‘I’m taking the family out for a barbecue in the hills, do we have any venison?’” McGrady says on behalf of Smooth Spins Casino. “He’d go on to ask what we could marinate them with and what vegetables were in the garden. He’d often walk the gardens and see what’s in there. He loved local produce. Then he would be in charge of cooking the main course.”
Other royals like Princess Anne and Prince Edward would ask McGrady for advice on what to bring for family meals. “They worked as a family on creating this meal, which they loved,” he says. “They weren’t afraid to let their hair down and get stuck in.”
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“I loved going up to Balmoral,” he adds. “It was where the royal family were at their happiest.”
Princess Anne, Prince Philip, Prince Andrew, Queen Elizabeth, and Prince Charles at Balmoral.Credit: Getty
Well, save for Diana. The princess honeymooned there in 1981 with Prince Charles, and her former royal butler Paul Burrell previously said that “Staying at the castle could be a drought experience for any newcomer—how to address members of the royal family; knowing what time to appear for drinks; the social test of dinner table conversation and whether you would be warmly accepted into the fold.”
Speaking to biographer Andrew Morton for his book Diana: Her True Story, Diana spoke about her feelings for Balmoral herself, telling him, “The myth about me hating Balmoral—I love Scotland, but just the atmosphere drains me to nothing.”
“I go up ‘strong Diana,’” she continued. “I come away depleted of everything, because they just suck me dry, because I tune into all their moods and boy, are there some undercurrents there! Instead of having a holiday, it’s the most stressful time of the year. It’s very close quarters.”
Prince Charles and Princess Diana on their honeymoon at Balmoral in August 1981.Credit: Getty Images
Burrell told Marie Claire that she “tried to please Charles, so her times at Balmoral were to please him. She wanted to fit in, she wanted to be loved, she wanted to be accepted, and that was all part of that acceptance.”
“I think from day one, she realized that that place was so full of ghosts from the past that she could never fit in as a modern woman,” he continued. “She could never fit into that archaic world.”
Princess Diana sitting outside Highgrove in 1986.Credit: Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images
Burrell backed up McGrady’s account that Diana “was a city girl. She disliked country pursuits—horses, shooting, mud, and particularly hunting, which she thought was barbaric. But she tried so hard to please her husband.”
“She lived in the real world,” he added. “She lived in a world with homelessness, HIV and AIDS, and landmines. They didn’t fit into the walls of Balmoral Castle.”
on InStyle
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
