Kate Middleton and Prince William’s Home Features a Panic Room and a Secret Tunnel

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 5 March 2022

Don’t let the fact that Kensington Palace was built in 1605 fool you. The palace, home to the Cambridges and other members of the royal family, is outfitted with high-tech security features that rival even the most modern of homes.

Apartment 1A—where Prince William, Kate Middleton, and their three children Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Princess Louis live—is equipped with a panic room and a secret tunnel to help ensure the family’s safety. (The term “apartment,” by the way, is a bit misleading: The Cambridges’ home features 20 rooms, including five reception rooms, three main bedrooms, dressing rooms, a night and day nursery, and staff quarters, per the Mirror.) The home is also complete with a top-secret panic room and a special escape tunnel to protect them from biological warfare, the outlet reports.

“Kate and William’s royal apartment at Kensington Palace includes a panic room with an air filtration system, guarding against biological warfare, and an escape tunnel,” the Global Citizen reports, via the Mirror.

The panic room may be a new nugget of information about Apartment 1A, but the secret tunnel has been reported on in the past–namely because William and his brother, Prince Harry, used the tunnel as a secret entrance to KP while growing up there with their mother, Princess Diana.

And William and Kate aren’t the only royals with high-tech security setups. Her Majesty has a panic room at both Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, which are “encased in 18-inch thick, bullet-resistant, fire-retardant steel walls,” the Global Citizen says. Prince Charles and Camilla’s Highgrove home has an iron room the size of a shipping container that can be used in matters of emergency. And all royal panic rooms are designed to ensure that the monarch and her three heirs can survive for at least a week, the Global Citizen says.

“The royal panic rooms are designed to withstand poison gas, bombs, or terrorist attacks,” the outlet reports. “They are equipped with secure communications, beds, washing equipment, and enough food and water for the royals to survive for at least a week.”

The outlet also added that very few people know exactly where each royal’s panic room is located, for obvious reasons.

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.