A spaniel puppy called Darcy did not care about the schedule. Prince William, the heir to the British throne, had a walkabout ahead of him, a crowd waiting and a £250,000 community fund to launch in Princetown on Dartmoor. Instead, on Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026, the prince stopped in the street in his suit to pet the dog and ask her owner about her.
A Coincidence on the Moor
Darcy’s owner, the British comics writer and novelist Tony Lee, happened to be in the village on a research trip, and he posted a photograph of the encounter on Instagram.
“That moment when you’re on a research trip in Dartmoor and you’ve stopped where Conan Doyle stayed while writing THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES and you bump into HRH Prince William and he asks about your puppy,” Lee wrote in the caption, according to the Mirror.
Arthur Conan Doyle stayed at Princetown’s Duchy Hotel in 1901 while researching the novel, which turns on a dog loose on this same moor. The building now houses Gather & Moor, the hub where William began his visit.
Lee added: “Remember to follow Darcy! She knows all the right people! @itsdarcythespaniel”
Dozens of comments followed after the picture was reshared on X, the Mirror reported. “What a nice surprise!!” one person wrote. “Aw how sweet! And the puppy liked him,” said another. One holidaymaker recalled sitting stopped in their car while William crossed the road 5 feet in front of them; that, they said, had made their holiday.
Why the Prince Was in Princetown
The dog, though, was an accident. The day’s real business was money for a village that sits beside an empty prison.
The Princetown Community Fund brought William to the village: it will award at least £250,000 through grants ranging from £500 to £40,000 for locally led social, economic and environmental projects. Devon Communities Together is delivering it, and applicants can also get practical help in putting a bid together. Applications opened as he visited; larger grants are open until Dec. 15, and smaller ones on a rolling basis until the end of February.
Emma Magee, head of communities and nature at the Duchy of Cornwall, described the fund as a chance to celebrate Princetown. The point, she said, was to give local people room to take charge of what they want to see happen and then pay for it. Over recent months, the Princetown Place Strategy had gathered views from residents, businesses and community groups on how investment should support the village’s future, she said. The fund also builds on the Encounters Shop, a pop-up consultation space in the village in January that drew more than 300 visits.
Crowds gathered as the prince worked his way around the village during a visit of about three hours. At Gather & Moor, the community, cultural and visitor hub and cafe that opened in August in the center of the village, he met the fund’s administrators, rangers from Dartmoor National Park and artists whose work is sold there. “Love it, fantastic, they have done a great job,” he said of the hub. Residents drawing up a vision for Princetown also spoke with him, and over the wall of the village primary school he chatted with children about their favorite sports.
Artists Emma Hogbin and Jon Palmer run Princetown Press, where William was invited to try a printing process that uses inks and pigments drawn from the moorland. They showed him how to work a historic letterpress, and he printed a broadsheet marking the occasion. “Excellent. And spelt correctly,” he said as he checked it.
Then there were the alpacas. Gari and Karen Mann, who run Hooves and Moor alpaca trekking, brought Treacle and Noodle along. William stroked the pair and asked how they had managed the summer heat beneath so much wool. “Are they allowed in the house?” he asked, drawing laughs from the crowd.
At his last stop, Princetown Youth Club, he watched teenagers work through a drama workshop. Duchy of Cornwall funding had paid to replace the club’s leaky roof and widen its activities. “Is it better there is no hole in the roof? A bit draughty when I last came here,” William said. Emma Byrom, who chairs the club, said the Duchy money had kept its doors open. “The prince had visited before and he said: ‘It’s not closing on my watch,’ and it hasn’t,” she said, adding that because the village is so isolated, its children do not always get the opportunities available in a nearby city such as Plymouth.
The Prison Rent Behind the Fund
Dartmoor Prison, a category C jail on Duchy land, has stood empty since July 2024, when high levels of radon — a gas that occurs naturally in soil and rock and can cause lung cancer — were found in prisoner accommodation. The Ministry of Justice still pays the Duchy about £1.5 million a year in rent under a 25-year lease signed in 2022. Rather than keep it, William asked for the sum to be removed from his Duchy of Cornwall income and redirected into local community regeneration from 2026-27 onward. “The benefit of this income should remain in the community, helping local people shape that future,” said his private secretary, Ian Patrick.
The £250,000 forms part of a wider £1.5 million investment the Duchy announced in June, putting the rental income back into the community around the prison. Looking further out, the Duchy plans to deploy more than £500 million over the next decade on housing, community projects, local economies, renewable power, nature recovery and greater resilience in farming. The government has announced no decision on the prison’s future.
Douglas Jenner, who owns the Old Police Station Cafe in Princetown, spoke to the prince during the visit. William, he said, wanted to know what effect the prison’s closure was having on the village. The place had needed the investment, Jenner said.
The grants will outlast the day. The other thing, the picture that traveled, was a man in a suit and a spaniel puppy in the road on Dartmoor.
