REVEALED: CAMILLA'S LONDON COURT

THE traffic on the M4 from Gloucestershire to town can be "beastly", according to Camilla Parker Bowles. "I only come up for two days a week if I can help it."

Camilla is not given to swanking about the capital. You'd have more chance of seeing Ken Livingstone riding to hounds than Camilla skipping from San Lorenzo and heading to Bond Street. She is the antithesis of Diana.

She has a reputation for being happier mucking out and nipping over to Jilly Cooper's, who lives near Highgrove, for a mug of tea than being London's most sought-after saloniste.

And yet, her forthcoming marriage to Prince Charles will usher in a different role in London, and one can already witness a reinvention of Camilla from a doughty Women's Institute-type to a more slickly dressed operator. But what about her life in London? Where are her haunts? Who will she play with?

And what will she do of an evening?

Before Prince Charles divorced, Camilla would dutifully trundle up to London in her clackety Ford Granada Scorpio and stay with her friend, Virginia Carrington, daughter of Lord Carrington, in South Kensington, or with the Marquess of Douro and his wife, heir to the Duke of Wellington, in their flat atop Apsley House on Hyde Park Corner.

"She didn't have anywhere of her own to stay, no driver or bodyguards, but was already being hounded by the paparazzi," says a friend who did not care to be named (Camilla inspires rock-solid loyalty). She now has more than a bolt hole in London: she will be the chatelaine of Clarence House in St James's, the home left to Charles on the death of the Queen Mother.

The house, designed by John Nash in the 1820s, has been renovated at a cost of Pounds 8 million. The standard of the Prince of Wales will flutter from its rooftops whenever the couple are in residence. Camilla is said to adore Clarence House - particularly the so- called "horse corridor", which contains pictures depicting 200 years of racing, one of her great loves.

Under the instruction of Prince Charles, interior designer Robert "Pounds 1,500-for-a-lampshade" Kime has made sure it can cope with entertaining on a lavish scale. "The prince loves a party and, increasingly, so does Camilla.

They will be able to throw the best parties in London and everyone will want to be invited," says a friend.

The couple love eating al fresco. The spot where the Queen Mother hosted grand lunches under a huge plane tree will be the backdrop for lunches with the couple's eclectic group of friends.

You might have Stephen Fry, Joanna Lumley, Eve Pollard and Jonathan Dimbleby next to the Duke of Devonshire, Jacob Rothschild, Charles and Patty Palmer-Tomkinson, Lord Lloyd-Webber, the exiled King Constantine of Greece and Betsy Bloomingdale.

For lunch, she likes to nip up the road to Green's on Duke Street, the oyster bar run by Simon Parker Bowles, the jolly brother of Camilla's former husband, Andrew. They all remain friends. If not Green's, where she loves Dover Sole and a glass of Chablis, Camilla heads to Le Caprice, where she usually has the table tucked into the wall near Sir Harold Pinter and Lady Antonia Fraser.

She also enjoys The Sloane Club, the unfussy bastion of cosiness for country types where you can get a hearty roast. She has stayed here in the past and also at The Goring Hotel, just behind Buck House. She also likes to meet her brother Mark Shand at his favourite restaurant, La Famiglia in Chelsea.

She loves the Establishment haunts such as Kensington's Launceston Place, Wilton's on Jermyn Street - a favourite with one of the couple's closest friends, the Hon Nicholas Soames - and Mark's Club, London's grandest private dining room off Berkeley Square. It is owned by Mark Birley who also owns Annabel's and George. She doesn't like The Ivy - too many photographers.

Camilla might have lunch with one of her close friends, such as Candida Lycett-Green, Lady Christie from Glyndebourne, Teresa Wells, wife of the late polymath John Wells who was a good friend of Charles, Leonora Lichfield or her best friend, her sister Annabel Elliot. It was at Annabel's 50th birthday party at The Ritz in 1999 that Prince Charles and Camilla made their first public appearance together.

Annabel's son, Ben Elliot, is the owner of the concierge service Quintessentially, and a good chum of Camilla's son Tom, 29, a food writer for Tatler. Two of the main reasons Camilla is enjoying London more is the emergence of her children, Tom and Laura, as more than incidental blips on the capital's cooler scene.

Laura, 24, is the quieter of the two and lives in a flat off Sloane Square.

She runs an art gallery in Pimlico called Space and is keen on showing her mother the edgier aspects of London's contemporary art scene.

"They go on clandestine trips to places like Shoreditch," says a friend.

Camilla supports her children's careers without reservation and can often be seen trying out London's latest restaurants - Assaggi in Chepstow Place, Yatra on Dover Street - with Tom, who is a likeable sort who hangs out with Zac Goldsmith and loves poker. Tom, who is close to Prince William and a godson of Prince Charles, also favours Notting Hill: one of his favourite restaurants is Kensington Place.

CAMILLA'S other great passion is to go to the theatre - she has been seen with Charles at The Producers and Mary Poppins.

The couple often go to the theatre with Sir Evelyn de Rothschild and his new wife, Lynn, or they might attend a lecture at The Royal Geographical Society - Sir Ranulph Fiennes is a favourite.

Though Camilla is not a great one for shopping, she is a fan of Peter Jones, and can increasingly be seen in Mayfair's South Audley Street, home to Thomas Goode and James Purdey Sons, the famous country sport's outfitters and gunmakers where she buys presents for Charles. She gets her riding crops repaired at Swaine Adeney Brigg on St James's Street.

Her friends get their hair done at Hugh Stephens in Ebury Street, and Camilla is believed to have gone there recently to get her hair coloured. She has no plans to change the style she has worn for years, however, because Prince Charles loves it.

While not famous for loving clothes, Camilla has accepted that she is going to have to spruce up her act. In recent years she has relied on Robinson Valentine, couturiers who work from a discreet mews house off Kensington High Street. They have designed the wedding dresses for Caroline Freud's marriage to Earl Spencer and Sheherazade Bentley's to Zac Goldsmith, and are tipped to design Camilla's.

Those close to Camilla tell me that she is gradually beginning to love London and that her enjoyment is helping Charles to enjoy the capital more.

"It helps keep him lighthearted and lively," said one. "I think we will see more and more of them in town."

Of course, with a driver, a police escort and Clarence House awaiting you, that trip up the M4 needn't be quite so beastly

(c)2005. Associated Newspapers Ltd.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.