The Royal baby will be the latest of several generations of royalty to spend some of his childhood in Norfolk.

The Queen loved the carefree days she spent at Sandringham with her sister, the late Princess Margaret, in the 1930s and 1940s.

Her four children and eight grandchildren have all enjoyed the rolling Norfolk countryside around the Royal Estate.

In January, it emerged that Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge had been given Anmer Hall, a grand late- Georgian country house on the 20,000-acre Royal Estate, two miles from Sandringham House, by the Queen.

The Prince was a frequent visitor to the property during his younger days, when it was rented out to family friends.

Royal aides have been given planning permission to carry out a package of modifications to the 10-bedroom mansion.

They include a new private drive and extra planting to screen the house and its grounds from the nearby road.

A new garden and sitting rooms, along with space for Royal protection officers are also included in the plans, which could only be viewed on application to West Norfolk Council.

The Duke often visited the late-Georgian property, as a boy, when it was leased by Hugh and Emilie van Cutsem, who are close friends of the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, in the early 1990s.

Prince William is said to have been close to all four of the couple's sons, whom he and his brother Harry regularly visited at Anmer.

Between 1972 and 1990, the house was leased to the Duke and Duchess of Kent. Its current tenant, businessman James Everett, has lived in the house for six years and reportedly has a 10-year lease on the house which runs until 2017.

It remains unclear when the Cambridges and their new addition will move into the house and whether it will become their main home or a country retreat.

While it is close to both King's Lynn and the Norfolk coast, Anmer is a tiny hamlet, reached by tree-lined lanes, which doesn't have a pub or shop.

For now, the couple will live at Kensington Palace.

Once his two weeks' paternity leave are up, Prince William will commute to North Wales while he concludes his three-year stint as a search and rescue pilot flying out of RAF Valley on Anglesey.

While the Prince's plans after he leaves the air force have not yet been disclosed, he is expected to take on more official engagements as the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh – aged 87 and 92 respectively – take on fewer commitments.