Inside King Charles and Queen Camilla’s traditional Highland Hogmanay plans

King Charles and Queen Camilla are planning to carry out some very specific traditions in their Highland Hogmanay plans for New Year. The royal couple have travelled to Birkhall in Aberdeenshire each year since their first trip in 2004 where the then Prince Charles took Camilla on a romantic getaway to ask for her hand in marriage.

Now, 19 years on, the now King and Queen are set to head there again to bring in the bells of 2024, the Mirror reports. Over the festive period, the royals enjoy a Christmas feast together at Sandringham but the monarch will be heading up to Scotland where he will spend the first hours of the new year with Queen Camilla.

It appears tradition has survived long after the ascension of King Charles III, who is set on the Birkhall New Year traditions he laid out almost 20 years ago. His late mother, Queen Elizabeth would traditionally remain at Sandringham until early February to commemorate the death of her father King George VI.

However, Charles has his own plans for how he’d like to bring in the new year as King from now on and is set to enjoy an informal and relaxed time at Birkhall, the Daily Mail reports. It will not be the first time the King and Queen have brought in the bells at Birkhall with other family members sometimes accompanying the duo on their trip.

Prince William and Kate Middleton made a notable appearance during Hogmanay in 2009 where it was believed Charles’ older son would pop the question in a similar fashion but William decided to hold off for another 10 months.

It is believed Prince William and Prince Harry avoided Birkhall as the crowd of attendees, including Sir Nicholas Soames and Annabel Elliot, a sister of Camilla, are frequent guests “very much Charles and Camilla’s set” of close friends. An insider claimed the King would “pull out all the stops for his party, which will probably go on into the early hours of the morning”.

The monarch is believed to have once said: “At Balmoral there’s a lot of dancing, and at Birkhall there’s a lot of drinking.”

It’s also been claimed fireworks have been banned at the occasion as the King can’t stand the thought of scaring his prize-winning ducks which reside on the same estate. It is also due to the low-key nature of the party, which holds an elusive and exclusive guest list.

The late first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, Margaret Rhodes, once opened up about the evenings at Birkhall for Hogmanay.

She said: “At the end of the meal she would start a series of toasts. As well as “Hooray for” with glasses held high, there was even more of “Down with”, with glasses almost disappearing beneath the table.

“Combined with the nostalgic sing-songs, [it] always made for an unforgettable evening.”

It would appear those traditions are set to continue.

A celebration at Birkhall in 2006 included a quick tipple of a 50-year-old malt whiskey while Charles’ two professional chefs prepared a luxurious feast including Highland cattle steak, gamebirds shot near the river dee, mushrooms grown by Charles and some locally caught salmon.

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