British Military Combatives in the Queen's Service

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Balmoral Castle (There are other privately-owned houses on this property known as Craigowan Lodge and Delnadamph Lodge.)
Holyrood Great name, but pretty official and conspicuous.

I'm pretty sure that a lot of the early activity during the establishment of the Shadow Court took place on the grounds of Balmoral Castle, but after the expansion of the society it is too much in the public eye. Not really practical to have the headquarters of a secret society, complete with paramilitary units, anywhere near it. The same for Holyrood.

The lodges look too small, in addition to the issue of proximity to Balmoral. I'm fairly certain the Queen doesn't want Charles all up in her business about this, as I think he'd disapprove (assuming she got him past disbelieving, obviously).

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Birkhall Not very castlely-looking.

Possible, I suppose. Though, it is true, it lacks a certain imposing something. I wonder if it shares any access roads with Balmoral (it's no more than ca 30 km away, I think). That would be a point against it.

Ideally, I want nothing else connected to the Royal Family close enough so that relatives might pop over to visit the Queen while she's there. Also, I don't want neighbours within 10-20 km, preferably not within 50 km. Not unless such neighbours are few enough so that they could conceivably all be at least semi-clued-in and fiercely loyal to the Royal Family. And absolutely no traffic anywhere within visual range or potential hearing range of flashbangs, grenades, live-fire automatic weapon exercises or demolition training.

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

There's a couple of choices in Wales if you're flexible on the location in Scotland.

I'm very flexible on the location, as long as it has the elements for which I'm looking in a secret headquarters. These include primarily a complete absence of close neighbours and a scarcity of neighbours at all. Also, it has to come with huge grounds that can be fenced off, or at least have the roads closed, and patrolled at certain times, in order to prevent anyone from being close enough to notice odd things.

The Queen wouldn't even have to use people who were fully clued-in to the secret for the perimeter defence. Just saying that she wanted to use the place as a private retreat, along with selected friends, would be enough to get police assigned to prevent press (and other unwelcome guests) from going there. Only the innermost perimeter would be done by society members, in that case the top instructors for the Queen's Paranormal Rangers, as well as the headquarter element of the Rangers and, at least when the Queen is in residence, a reserve Ranger team not sent out on missions. I imagine that since 2000 or so, the most trusted members of the Queen's personal security element have been fully clued-in, by her personally no less, for one thing because she knows well that in this new world, threats to public figures may be supernatural as well as stemming from regular crazies or even 'regular' terrorists. These will train alongside the quick-reaction team Rangers, but instead of going out on missions, they'll make sure that everywhere the Queen goes, she'll be safe from paranormal threats as well as physical ones.

I mentioned Scotland because I felt it was most likely to have an isolated castle on a moor.

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

And speaking of Wales, fandom insists I add the Craig-Y-Nos Castle, currently a hotel in real life and not owned by the Royal Family. Though I'm sure they could afford it if you like the reference.

I'm not familiar with Doctor Who and don't think I'd get it even if I tried.

On the other hand, if the Queen could obtain a suitable castle without it becoming a major media event, she'd certainly have considered doing so in the years between 2000-2005, i.e. somewhere during the period when the informal conspiracy of close friends and associated started to become more of an unofficial intelligence service of the supernatural, at the latest before it first started to operate as Her Majesty's Supernatural Scotland Yard and the Sweenie rolled in one.

I'm certainly comfortable with stating that one of the divergences from our world is a real estate purchase made discreetly by trusted agents of the Queen in the name of the Royal Family, preferably from a loyal subject who could be relied upon not to speculate about the transaction anywhere in public.