Given its age and status as a royal property, Forest Lodge was always going to have some skeletons in its closets.
And as historian Christopher Wilson revealed in the Daily Mail at the weekend, one of its past owners was a slaver who made his money from coffee and rum plantations in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
But now, as the Prince and Princess of Wales prepare to move into the eight-bed home in Windsor Great Park with their three children, formerly secret files seen by the Daily Mail have shed intriguing light on the property's more recent history.
Documents stored in the National Archives show how the home's current name was originally suggested by King Edward VIII, after a row involving his equerry, Sir John Aird, who was a tenant from 1937 until his death in 1973.
Aird - described as a 'hard bargainer' and 'very difficult' by officials - had considered an alternative suggestion 'distasteful' and had wanted to keep the name of 'Ranger's Lodge'.
