KARMA FARMER

Prince Harry’s Rural Hideaway Is a Farmhouse Filled With Celebrities

If Harry and Meghan really want to lead quiet lives, the favorite Cotswolds hangout of Paul McCartney and the Beckhams is not the best place to do it.

Following up on the world’s least surprising story (that Meghan’s first sighting in the wild in the UK was at Soho Farmhouse in Oxfordshire last week), my sources tell me that Prince Harry was spotted at the Soho Farmhouse pool area on Thursday.

Hold on to your hats, because my sources tell me Harry was wandering around the reception area of the pool, known as the Boat House, looking for a towel.

History, sadly, does not relate where the rogue royal headed next.

Soho House is a private members’ club with a vast membership, and, given that Prince Harry’s office has so far declined to confirm that he and his children (the fifth, sixth and seventh in line to the British throne) have moved to the United Kingdom, I consider this, and the sighting of Meghan there that came my way last week from my impeccable Cotswold sources, more than valid stories to report.

The country outpost of the storied members’ club in North Oxfordshire is about 40 minutes away from the property where I am told Harry is staying.

But here’s the thing that strikes me most forcefully about the Sussexes’ apparent adoption of Soho Farmhouse as their local: it is, without question, one of the single most high-profile venues in the English countryside.

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You will still see Paul McCartney drinking a cup of coffee there in the morning, or the Beckhams (who live nearby and treat the place as a canteen, walking over across the fields) coming in to use the exercise bikes or having dinner. Simon Cowell is a fixture, as is his wife Lauren, plus a million influencers and wannabes.

They don’t care if reports get back to the media once in a while, and, perhaps, neither do Harry and Meghan anymore. Maybe they even secretly welcome suggestions that they are putting down roots and exploring the local area like any other newcomer? Their office declined to confirm my sighting, but—given Harry’s history with the press—it was a pleasant surprise that they did not claim that the very fact of reporting this violated society’s foundational contracts.

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The reality is that while members and their guests are not allowed to take photographs, the comings and goings of famous faces have a way of getting back to ink-stained wretches like me. If you go to Soho Farmhouse, someone like me is probably going to hear about it.

If Harry and Meghan genuinely did not want to be seen, well, one assumes that the lavish property where Harry is staying comes equipped with its own bench press, and quite possibly its own pool.

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I would also argue that this first free-range sighting of Harry is worth reporting because I conclude from Harry padding around the Boat House reception that they have realized that conducting any semblance of a normal life in the UK will involve surfacing in places where there is a reasonable expectation they will be seen by the public.

Harry’s appearance at the Boat House also fits neatly with Meghan, as my sources told me last week, arriving alone on a weekday before 9 a.m. and making her way directly to the relaxed upstairs lounge known as the Comfy Farm. Here, she was greeted by a considerable “fanfare,” and she was informally introduced to several senior staff members by name, suggesting that the club hopes the Sussexes will be regulars.

Meghan’s friend Markus Anderson has spent many years as a senior executive at the company (he is now its chief relationship officer), and the Sussexes’ first date was at Soho House on Dean Street, London, according to Harry’s own account in Spare. Meghan was friendly with the team who ran the Toronto outpost when she was shooting Suits there.

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There is also the property question. The Sussexes rented a house in the nearby village of Great Tew when they were working royals, and there has been persistent speculation that they have been looking at property near Farmhouse, including one house in particular, quite close to the entrance, a big house with a decent amount of land.

Is this the one? Time will tell.

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Tom SykesEuropean Editor at Large

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