Charles Spencer likes to keep his followers updated with the goings-on at Althorp House, his family's ancestral home, where he was raised alongside his sister, Princess Diana. On 18 January, Earl Spencer, 61, took to Instagram to share a new video of the estate in Northamptonshire to mark a special occasion.
"Ludicrously beautiful late afternoon today, after a happy day celebrating a Spencer cousin’s 90th birthday," Charles wrote, captioning the video, which displayed an eerie view of the house and the mist covering the sprawling grounds.
"The birthday girl's tip to the rest of us about life? 'There's no time for dithering'."
Earl Spencer's relationship with Althorp
Charles and his sisters, Diana, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, 70, and Jane Fellowes, Baroness Fellowes, 68, were raised at Althorp from the age of 11 when their grandfather, Albert, the 7th Earl, died in 1975 and the family moved from Park House on the Sandringham estate to the Northamptonshire estate.
At the time, Charles struggled with acclimatising to his new surroundings. He told The Telegraph in 2019: "It sounds grand but [we had] no neighbours except the fallow deer. It was difficult to start again.
"It cannot be home in the conventional sense. For 300 years, my family perambulated between Spencer House in London, a villa in Wimbledon, and a house in Norfolk," he continued. "It has always been a magnificent project rather than home. It's a family headquarters, part of the nation's heritage."
The home certainly showcases the family's legacy as a large memorial was erected for Diana, who passed away in 1997, in the house's grounds and opened to the public on 1 July 1998, which would have been her 37th birthday.
Remembering Diana
The princess was laid to rest on a small, tree-covered island on the estate known as Oval Lake Grave. The memorial is certainly a draw for those who want to pay their respects to the late royal.
The estate is open to the public from early July to the end of August each year. "The house has about 20,000 visitors a year, who can be split into two groups: Those who pay their respects to Diana, and those who come to look at the house," Charles told the newspaper.
"I'm thrilled when people remember Diana. At the same time, if they just want to look at the paintings, I'm totally relaxed."
For those hoping to visit the Oval Lake grave in 2026, Althorp typically releases tickets in the spring for the summer season.