Prince Louis is offered his first official royal role at the age of seven… as the honorary patron of the World Conker Championships

Prince Louis was forced to decline a chance to take up his first official role as a working royal – as a patron of the World Conker Championships.

The offer was made to the seven-year-old prince after organisers heard about his habit of stashing conkers around Kensington Palace.

While Palace staff were amused at the invitation, Louis’ parents declined the offer as the young Prince is still some years away from starting work.

A palace spokesperson said: ‘We really appreciate the invite but currently Prince Louis is “conker-trating” on his studies.’

The Prince’s love of conkers was revealed by Princess Kate during an outing with US First Lady Melania Trump, when the pair spent time with a group of Scouts at Frogmore Gardens during US President Donald Trump’s official visit to the UK.

Kate, who is joint president of the Scouts, told Chief Scout Dwayne Fields about Louis’s current obsession.

‘We keep finding conkers in cupboards, in his bed – conkers everywhere!’

The Royal also revealed that Louis is so enamoured by the autumnal staple that he even puts the conkers in his toy trucks and plays with them.

St John Burkett, spokesperson for the World Conker Championships told The Telegraph earlier this week that they had invited Prince Louis to the event as a patron and were ‘excitedly awaiting a response’.

He said: ‘Like the many other organisations for which members of the Royal Family are patrons, we have charitable aims and have raised approaching £450,000 to help people living with sight loss.

‘We were so heartened to hear that Prince Louis is such a conkers fan and he would be the perfect honorary patron for our organisation. We would be delighted were his parents to accept our offer.’

He added that Prince Louis would be welcome to attend an event in the future.

The quirky event has strong links to royalty, after it was revealed that King Charles stepped in to help secure the future of the event.

The competition had been in doubt due to a dry summer, which meant larger horse chesnut tree seeds had become scarce.

Windsor Castle then sent a delivery of more than 300 conkers to be used for the event.

This year’s event took place on Sunday but competitors were forced to enter through ‘airport-style’ security following a cheating row in 2024.

Some 256 people from nine different countries, including Japan, entered this year’s competition, which was held in Southwick, West Sussex on Sunday, organisers said.

Security at this year’s event was enhanced to prevent further scandals after the 2024 tournament was thrown into turmoil when its men’s champion, David Jakins, was accused of using a conker made of steel.

Mr Jakins claimed his title after a ‘fantastic’ one-hit win, but this led to his defeated opponent, Alastair Johnson-Ferguson, raising concerns about the conker Mr Jakins used during their face-off.

The controversy escalated when a steel conker was found inside Mr Jakins’s pocket, leading the World Conker Championships to launch an investigation into the cheating claims.

The probe, which considered video and photographic evidence as well as testimony and examination of winning conkers, concluded and that Mr Jakin’s win – his first since he began competing in 1977 – was achieved fairly.

Organiser St John Burkett said of this year’s arrangements: ‘We had an airport-style scanner which competitors had to pass through, including a tray for them to empty their pockets in.

‘We also had a hand-held scanner, and sirens and flashing lights should anything untoward be detected by the scanner. And, in keeping with the event, the ringmaster had a big magnet on a stick.’

He added that a man was disqualified from Sunday’s event after he had set off an alarm while attempting to bring in his own conker, which is against competition rules.

Asked whether he thought the new measures were ‘too harsh’, Mr Burkett said: ‘Well, who knows? Who knows? The magnet will tell.’

The event, which took place at the Shuckburgh Arms in Southwick, sees participants go head-to-head using conkers threaded onto a string to try and smash their opponent’s nut.

Each player takes three alternate strikes at the opponent’s conker.

This year’s overall champion, Matt Cross, from Lincolnshire, said he was ‘speechless’ after winning the competition, which was the first time he had ever played the game.

Asked what it took to win, the 37-year-old who was crowned King Conker at the event, said: ‘Accuracy, you know, they’re not they’re not big targets, so, yeah, making sure you’re on target with it, if you hit it, you’ve got a chance of doing something.’

He added: ‘You can see here, it’s brought a village out and it’s more than just the village as well, it’s bringing people from around the world to traditions that are hundreds of years old, it’s great to see this many people here and still applauding.’

Of her win, women’s champion Mags Blake said she ‘can’t believe it’, having initially only come to the event to play the coconut shy and have fun.

The annual tournament has been hosted since 1965 when a group of men were planning to go fishing but couldn’t and held a conkers tournament instead.

One of them had a relative who was blind, so they decided they would all chip in and raise the money for her.