The Duchy of Lancaster is a private estate owned by Her Majesty The Queen, as Duke of Lancaster. The rural estates consist of 18,481 hectares of land in England and Wales and comprise commercial, agricultural and residential properties, the majority of which are in Lancashire, Yorkshire, Cheshire, Staffordshire and Lincolnshire. Additionally the Duchy has a significant commercial property portfolio largely in the Savoy precinct off the Strand in London, a portfolio of financial investments and a small urban residential portfolio. The ancient Lancaster inheritance we know as the Duchy of Lancaster began in 1265, when Henry III gifted the baronial lands of Simon de Montfort to his son, Edmund. A year later, Henry added the estate of Robert Ferrers, Earl of Derby and then the ‘honour, county, town and castle of Lancaster’, giving Edmund a new title, Earl of Lancaster.
