THE Duchess of Cornwall may have been fully accepted as part of the royal family, but the 150 guests for her 60th birthday party at Highgrove yesterday showed her and her husband’s closest friends are still the horsey county set that brought them together.

Those tucking into organic beef from the prince’s herd at the couple’s country home were principally their Gloucestershire neighbours and friends from Wiltshire, where Camilla keeps her own house, Raymill, as a bolthole to kick off her shoes and escape from courtiers and Highgrove staff.

The guests included a good turnout from the Beaufort hunt, based locally, with which the couple used to ride regularly before the hunting ban.

Prince William was due to attend the black-tie dinner with Kate Middleton, a further sign of their rekindled relationship. Clarence House said, however, that Prince Harry was on holiday and unable to attend. Other royal guests included the Earl and Countess of Wessex, Zara Phillips and Viscount Linley.

The duchess’s children, Tom and Laura, were invited, as was her sister Annabel Elliot.

Other long-standing friends from the country rather than London end of her life included Lady Shelburne, whose stately home in Wiltshire has provided a venue for some of Camilla’s charity events, and Charles and Patti Palmer-Tomkinson, parents of the socialite Tara.

“Apart from getting a new title little has changed for Camilla since the marriage,” said a friend of the couple. “Their friends have remained the same and even the pattern of their lives has remained largely unchanged.”

Other guests included Camilla’s exhusband Andrew Parker Bowles, and his wife Rosemary, and Tiggy Pettifer, formerly Tiggy Legge-Bourke, who was nanny to William and Harry. She was invited with her husband Charles.

Other guests included Sir David Frost, the broadcaster, and his wife Carina.

On Friday a stream of tradesmen’s vans had arrived at Highgrove in the driving rain. One belonged to Balloon Crazy, a London firm that produces elaborate balloon “bouquets”. Another was from M&J Seafood, of Grimsby, which boasts of “clocking up the air miles searching for the best of the world’s catch”.

Some of the guests who were at the duchess’s 50th birthday at Highgrove in 1997, shortly before the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, were not invited. These included the novelist Jilly Cooper.

Instead of gifts, guests were asked to make donations to the National Osteoporosis Society, of which Camilla is patron. For those who insisted on giving a present as well, Clarence House provided a wedding-style list. Items on it are reported to have included a pair of sun-loungers.

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