Annabel Elliot

Sonia Annabel Elliot (née Shand), born on 2 February 1949, is a British interior designer, antiques dealer, and courtier. She is a member of the British Royal Household and is related to the royal family through her sister, Queen Camilla.

Family and Personal Life

Elliot is the daughter of Major Bruce Shand (1917–2006) and The Honourable Rosalind Cubitt (1921–1994). Her maternal grandfather was the 3rd Baron Ashcombe, and her maternal grandmother was Sonia Rosemary Keppel. She has an elder sister, Queen Camilla, born in 1947, and a brother, Mark Shand (1951–2014), who was a travel writer.

Elliot studied fine art in Florence, Italy. On 27 April 1972, she married Simon Elliot (1940–2023), a Dorset landowner and the son of Air Chief Marshal Sir William Elliot and Rosemary Chancellor. The couple had three children, including Sir Ben Elliot, who served as the Co-Chairman of the Conservative Party.

Career

Elliot is the founder of Annabel Elliot Interior Design and Antiques, established in Dorset, which has been operating for approximately 30 years. She is also a co-founder of Talisman, an antiques and interiors emporium based in Gillingham. Her daughter Alice and her son-in-law Luke Irwin are also involved in interior design and antiques.

Professionally, Elliot has worked closely with her brother-in-law, King Charles III, serving as the chief interior designer for his estates. She started with renovations of the Duchy of Cornwall estates, including the interiors of twelve cottages on the Isles of Scilly and holiday cottages at Restormel Castle. She has also contributed to the interior design of Llwynywermod in Wales, an estate owned by King Charles.

In 2011, Elliot renovated Bovey Castle Hotel in Devon, earning recognition for her interior design work. The hotel was listed on the 2011 Gold List of the world's best places to stay. That same year, she contributed to furnishing the new sustainable building of The Duchy Nursery in Lostwithiel, Cornwall.

Further projects include furnishing Dumfries Lodge House in Ayrshire, Scotland, which was opened for business by King Charles in 2012, and the Highgrove House Shops, which sell home and garden products. In 2016, she furnished twenty bedrooms at the Duchess of Cornwall Inn in Poundbury, Dorset.

Recognition includes being ranked as the fifth most influential female interior designer in Britain by The Daily Telegraph in 2014.

Charity Work

Elliot served as a patron of the British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF) from 2005 until its closure in 2015. She has attributed her support for the charity to her mother, Rosalind, who worked for an adoption agency. Additionally, she is a life member and patron of the Elephant Family, an organization dedicated to wildlife conservation, which was chaired by her brother, Mark Shand, until his death in 2014.

Royal Household and Events

Elliot served as lady-in-attendance at the coronation of King Charles III in 2023. She was also invited, along with her son and daughter-in-law, to participate in the King's procession at Royal Ascot in 2023.