Duke of Westminster to settle down into a farming life after wedding

The Duke of Westminster has plans to settle down into the farming life of a country gentleman after his wedding, according to friends.

Next week Hugh Grosvenor, the seventh Duke, will wed duchess-to-be Olivia Henson in Chester Cathedral, Cheshire, with the Prince of Wales as an usher.

Following the nuptials, Chester is where the couple “want to lay down the foundations of their future”, and where the Duke will nurture his love of “nature, sustainability and farming,” a source close to them has said.

Friends of the Duke, 33, have described him as having “a genuine love of the land” that is fitting for one of the UK’s largest landowners who studied countryside management at university.

He is also president of the Country Trust, a charity that encourages children from disadvantaged backgrounds to connect with “the land that sustains us all” through visits to farms across the country, including the Duke’s Grosvenor Farms on his Eaton Estate in Cheshire.

Jill Attenborough, CEO of the Country Trust, described him as a “very authentic person” who is “genuinely inspired by the land and so enjoys having the opportunity to bring that to children”.

She said she had originally asked him to become president of the charity “not because it’s something his father did, but because I knew that he also had a genuine love of the land.”

“And people around him told me that it was his passion, too, that it really inspired him,” she added.

Next-gen farming

Ms Attenborough added: “He’s really aware of his responsibility as the next generation of farmers and landowners and he gently, certainly not in a sort of pushy way, tries to draw in his network as well of ‘next gen’ to talk about whether they might also welcome children into their farms and estates and showcase what they’re doing for a more sustainable future.”

Currently, the Duke will aim to take part as much as possible in the school visits to his farm and get “stuck in” with the children as they learn about the land.

“When he takes part in a visit, it’s wonderful because he’s just on a level where he’s loving being there with them and they love interacting with him,” Ms Attenborough added.

The Duke also currently has an ongoing project to create the largest continuous area of wildflowers in the country using local Cheshire wildflower seed and is passionate about timber production and developing his “cutting-edge” dairy farm.

The site of the farm, the family’s sprawling 11,000-acre Eaton Estate, will also play an important role in hosting the 400 wedding guests after a service at Chester Cathedral next Friday.

The guests, who have all been issued a strict no gifts instruction, will descend upon the picturesque county town for the main event followed by a more intimate gathering the next day for family and close friends.

Chester will be decorated with 100,000 flowers paid for by the Duke to mark the occasion, and they will be planted in displays across the cathedral city throughout the summer.

The wedding flowers, it is understood, will be donated to local charities and organisations following the ceremony in keeping with a theme of sustainability and locally sourced food throughout.

The couple have recently embarked on a few public charitable visits to highlight their support of their future home town, with Miss Henson insisting on one of them that the couple want to “put down roots” in the north-west county town where they will be wed.

“It’s obviously a place where we will live,” she said. “We’ll be building our lives together and we’re slowly transitioning to move up from London and be much more permanent here and really putting roots down.”

The bride-to-be added that it had been “an easy decision” for the couple to make.

However, a friend of the couple has caveated that the parameters of his role as chair of the Grosvenor Group, which manages more than 300 acres of Mayfair and Belgravia, means that they will “still be in London regularly”.

The Duke is actively involved in Grosvenor’s urban property development, food and agriculture technology as well as rural affairs.

His property portfolio, which he inherited from his father, who died of a heart attack in 2016 aged 64, includes more than 1,500 properties in 60 countries, making up the groom’s £10 billion-plus fortune.

The couple’s wedding, expected to be the glittering society event of the year, will see Prince William attending in the role of usher to support his friend, who is also godfather to Prince George.

The King is not expected to be in attendance, although he is the Duke’s godfather, as he continues to undergo cancer treatment and will be in France the day before to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day.

The Princess of Wales is also expected to be absent as she continues her own cancer treatment and recovery in the privacy of her family home in Windsor.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will also not be among the 400 guests next Friday, although Hugh is the godfather of Prince Harry’s five-year-old son Prince Archie.