Balmoral Castle has been one of the residences of the British Royal Family since 1852, when it was purchased by Queen Victoria and her consort, Prince Albert. It remains the private property of the monarch, and is not part of the state-owned Crown Estate. The Balmoral Estate has been added to by successive members of the Royal Family, and now covers an area of about 20,000 hectares (49,000 acres). It is a working estate, including grouse moors, forestry and farmland, as well as managed herds of deer, Highland cattle and ponies. Balmoral Estate is within the Cairngorms National Park, and is partly within the Deeside and Lochnagar National Scenic Area. The estate contains a wide variety of landscapes, from the Dee Valley to open mountains. There are seven Munros (hills in Scotland over 3,000 feet (910 m)) in the estate, the highest being Lochnagar at 1,155 metres (3,789 ft). The mountain was the setting for a children's story, The Old Man of Lochnagar, told originally by Prince Charles to his younger brothers, Andrew and Edward, and published during 1980. Most of the Castle is out of bounds to the public and those which are open, forbid any photography. This video just shows the grounds, but it will give you a pretty good idea of the extent to this grand estate. 0:03 - Outside the gates. 0:13 - Shuttle bus departs. 0:33 - Going up the long drive up to the castle. You can see that the route is surrounded by lovely tall trees. 3:24 - Inside the first exhibition hall displaying the uniforms worn by the staff. 3:57 - Inside the second exhibition hall displaying a timeline of photographs of the Queen and the royal family dating right back the 1880s.(4:40) The Queen's Piper's Uniform. 4:59 - Inside the third exhibition hall displaying vehicles driven at Balmoral. These include a 1947 Model series 11 Field Marshall ESA 885; Snow Trac, an Austin and a Range Rover. 5:34 - The outside of Balmoral Castle. 6:57 - The sunken garden.

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