The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge join almost 1,500 guests at memorial service for billionaire Duke of Westminster
They were joined by the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall as they attended the service at Chester Cathedral
THE Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were among almost 1,500 guests who turned out to pay tribute to the sixth Duke of Westminster today.
Prince William and Kate were joined by the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall as they attended the memorial service at Chester Cathedral in Cheshire.
Major General Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, a billionaire duke and close friend of the Royals, died of a heart attack aged 64 on August 9.
He was taken ill while on a visit to his Abbeystead Estate in Lancashire before he was transferred to Royal Preston Hospital.
Members of the Grosvenor family attended a "quiet" private funeral service in the days after the Duke's death but today's invitation-only ceremony was a more public occasion.
The Duke married Natalia Phillips in 1978 - a godmother to Prince William - and they had one son, Hugh, and three daughters Lady Tamara, Lady Edwina and Lady Viola.
The dukedom has passed to Hugh, 25, who is Prince George's youngest godfather.
Prince Charles represented the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh at the service, while Princess Eugenie represented the Duke of York.
Also present were the Duke of Kent, representing the Duchess of Kent, Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, and Princess Alexandra.
Overseas Royal family members included Prince Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa, Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Bahrain, Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, also from Bahrain; Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and his son Prince Salman bin Mohammed Al Saud from Saudi Arabia, and Crown Prince Pavlos of Greece.
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Employees and pensioners of the Grosvenor estate and representatives from the numerous charities the sixth Duke had connections with were also invited, as were military and civic representatives.
Several roads in the city centre were closed to traffic as people gathered behind barriers outside the cathedral to pay their respects.
The Grosvenor family's ancestral home is Eaton Hall at Eccleston, near Chester, and the Duke was also buried in the village.
At the time of his death the landowner was worth around £8.65 billion (10.8 billion US dollars) according to Forbes, making him the 68th richest person in the world, and third in the UK.
He owned 190 acres in Belgravia, adjacent to Buckingham Palace and one of London's most expensive areas, as well as thousands of acres in Scotland and Spain.
Today's service, which lasted for just over an hour, was led by the Dean of Chester, the Very Revd Professor Gordon McPhate.
The music was led and supported by the Cathedral team with choristers from the Cathedral and Chester Male Voice Choir, bell ringers from local churches and the Manchester Brass Ensemble.
Tenor Ian Bostridge, accompanied by Andrew Wyatt, assistant director of music at Chester Cathedral, performed Panis Angelicus by Cesar Franck (1822 - 1890).
Readings were given by the 7th Duke of Westminster, who read his father's favourite poem, If, by Rudyard Kipling; Richard Lyttleton, cousin of the late Duke, who read Revelation 21: 1-7 and The Duke of Cambridge, who read the Garter Prayer, part of the annual service for Knights of the Order of the Garter, with which the late Duke had been honoured.
Tributes were given by Jeremy Newsum, executive trustee of the Grosvenor Estate, who spoke of his long business partnership with the late Duke; General Sir Timothy Granville-Chapman, programme director of the Defence and National Rehabilitation Centre who spoke of the Duke's military career and Andrew Hay, a close family friend and relative.