Almost two years ago exactly, Carole and Michael Middleton’s financial house of cards collapsed. Party Pieces, their business, was bankrupt. In its final years, Party Pieces had racked up millions of pounds of debt, and when the business went into administration, the Middletons left a long trail of financial destruction in their wake, screwing over dozens of small businesses and local craftespeople. So much for “self-made millionaires with business acumen,” huh? When the husk of Party Pieces was sold to James Sinclair, he even went off-script and revealed that the Middletons never had the kind of money people thought they had.
At the time, I found it notable that Carole Middleton’s two wealthy sons-in-law never lifted a finger to help her out of her financial catastrophe. I mean, this is the future queen’s mother, it looks pretty bad that Kate’s parents look like deadbeat brokeasses, right? Surely Prince William would step in and limit the damage to the Middleton family? Surely Pippa’s terribly rich husband James Matthews would step in to help out his in-laws? But there was none of that. Instead, Pippa and terribly moderately wealthy James Matthews continued to invest in Pippa’s odd “Bucklebury Farm” scheme in Berkshire. They’ve spent years trying to create a petting zoo, tourist-trap shop and some kind of resort or wedding-venue property (right next to the petting zoo, classy). Just last week, GB News claimed that Pippa “transformed a lodge on her £15 million Berkshire estate into a versatile space that serves as a yoga retreat.” Well, this report from one of the British tabloids has added an interesting wrinkle into Pippa’s finances.
Tough times at Bucklebury Farm. I hear the 72-acre Berkshire estate owned by the Princess of Wales’s sister Pippa Matthws and her hedge-fund manager husband James is 807,542 in debt. The couple submitted plans to build a nursery on the farm, which features a petting zoo beloved by Prince George, to save it from financial ruin, but the idea was slammed by the local authority. The farm has faced yearly six-figure losses since James bought it for 1.3 million in 2021. Time to sell up?
Granted, it’s very much a “rich person thing” for a hedge-fund manager’s wife to have a ludicrous side-project which wastes a lot of time and money. I think that’s what this is – Pippa was trying her hand at a side-gig which she hoped would be profit-generating, and instead, her husband is just funding a money-pit resort/lodge project and the Middletons’ personal petting zoo. Man, the Middletons are just terrible at business.
How can Pippa and her billionaire husband be having money trouble? pic.twitter.com/UxRbWmLvMU
— royal whispers (@royalwhisper) June 13, 2025
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.
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- London, UNITED KINGDOM – Pippa Middleton puts on a stylish display with husband James Matthews as they attend the Cirque du Soleil’s Luizia at the Royal Albert Hall. Pictured: Pippa Middleton, James Matthews BACKGRID USA 13 JANUARY 2022 BYLINE MUST READ: Old Boy’s Club / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- London, UNITED KINGDOM – Pippa Middleton puts on a stylish display with husband James Matthews as they attend the Cirque du Soleil’s Luizia at the Royal Albert Hall. Pictured: Pippa Middleton, James Matthews BACKGRID USA 13 JANUARY 2022 BYLINE MUST READ: Old Boy’s Club / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- London, UNITED KINGDOM – Pippa Middleton attends the Heart Hero Awards 2023 in London. Pictured: Pippa Middleton BACKGRID USA 6 DECEMBER 2023 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- London, UNITED KINGDOM – Pippa Middleton attends the Heart Hero Awards 2023 in London. Pictured: Pippa Middleton BACKGRID USA 6 DECEMBER 2023 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Together At Christmas carol service at Westminster Abbey Featuring: Pippa Middleton Where: London, United Kingdom When: 06 Dec 2024 Credit: Cover Images
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- Pippa Middleton arriving for the Royal Carols – Together At Christmas service at Westminster Abbey in London Featuring: Pippa Middleton Where: London, United Kingdom When: 08 Dec 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
They sure are terrible. Let’s face it, these Middleton kids were groomed to social climb up the ladder not “work” (what is that?)
Isn’t there marital trouble between Pippa and James? Missing wedding ring? No photo ops together? Wonder if James is trying to disentangle himself. After all, his father has cocked things up for him. I’m sure there’s some financial messiness there too. James isn’t rich enough to fund his wife’s indulgences 😏
The Middletons ARE the money pit.
What is with them and petting zoos?! Which should be illegal, anyway.
What in the heck.
Look at the economy of the UK, babe. You are trying to create some sort of tourist attraction for people in the UK. Or a place for them to rent space etc. for yoga retreats? Work retreats? And weddings? And children’s birthdays? And you are competing against actual castles with staff that have done these things for decades and are a known entity?
I don’t live there. I’ve thought about this for 5 minutes. And I know that in a country covered in castles and forts, the market for what you are attempting is beyond saturated. Not to mention – the economy doesn’t support this at all. What in the heck kind of shit business plan was this?
If it was like a children’s horse / animal therapy center – with her background in early child development- that would make sense! That would’ve been a much more niche but much less crowded market.
But even then – the place sounds like a crumbling pile in the middle of nowhere. No one wants to drive 45 minutes for a petting zoo with angry goats. Esp not In a country where people can’t afford heat or rent or food or childcare.
Your rich friends can only hold so many events.
Depending on how the business is structured, it could be a tax write off for James and his father’s business interests. Or a money laundering scheme? Dear Uncle has a pot farm close by, the tabloids say.. Rumor?
Came in here to say this. There is nothing more middle class than to have a side “business” that loses money year after year, to which you charge everything you can as a tax writeoff. People do this with their “catering business” (read: perfect restaurant-level kitchen where you charge everything to it) or “B&B” (read: building on your property where you kit out a nice “bedroom” and charge everything else in your entire property to it). The Royals themselves do it with charging fancy clothes to the Duchies for “work events,” not to mention using helicopters like Ubers, and on and on and on…
I’m sure the Terribly Moderately Wealthy Matthews are doing just fine….
Like Kaiser however I still don’t get how they didn’t bail out Carole and Party Pieces, that was a lot of bad press that just didn’t have to happen. Why else did Carole do a Bennett and marry her daughters to the richest men she could find, if they wouldn’t help her out when she needed it most? So curious…
Remember the Middletons are experts at running businesses into the ground with massive debts and stiffing creditors and HMRC.
This was always a vanity project for Pips – she wants to play at being country club hostess, just like her sister plays at being a Duchess and her brother plays at being a country farmer.
There’s a theme.
This. I’m surprised more people aren’t aware this is shit rich people do 101. Which is pretend something is a business so they can write off their loses, which is just the money they spent fixing it up, to us civilians. They do suck as a family, but this isn’t some kind of financial failure.
Where’s the British press expose of the Middleton Family finances?
I mean this isn’t surprising. Pippa had a lot of flops. She had that weird book, she tried to do something with her (bum) fame in American media, which obviously didn’t work. It would be news if she actually accomplished something.
Not to defend any of the grifting Middletons but Pippa did actually get the degree in Early Childhood Learning that her lazy-ass sister has only been pretending to be an expert in for the last decade or so.
Damn either the uk is not conducive to starting a business are these guys are seriously bad at it. they’ve had a long time to know proximity to the RF is not necessarily a recipe for success. besides all that they should have spoken to the planning authority to get intel on how to build what ever it is they wanted to build. all is not lost though if they have the money they can do the amendments to get the planning permission there must be an architect or 2 in their circle. Rose’s husband is a landed gentry and she managed to turn her gardens into an out dorr Art gallery