By Catriona Rigney,Charlotte Foster,Jennifer Newton,Joshua Whorms

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Prince Harry met his father King Charles face to face for the first time in 19 months at Clarence House in London today.

Harry was driven through the gates of the monarch’s London home on Wednesday afternoon following an earlier engagement at the Centre for Blast Injury Studies at Imperial College London.

It is understood that Harry and Charles lasted 54 minutes and they had a private tea this afternoon at Clarence House. The Duke of Sussex left at 6.14pm, 54 minutes after arriving at 5.20pm. Harry was driven out of the royal residence in a black car and is expected to attend an Invictus Games event in London later this evening.

King Charles had arrived back in London back from Aberdeenshire earlier on Wednesday, but is due to to return to Balmoral Castle again on Thursday.

Charles had earlier carried out a series of official duties, beginning with a Privy Council at St James’s Palace. He also held a one-to-one investiture with Holocaust survivor Manfred Goldberg, who has made an MBE for services to Holocaust remembrance and education.

Later this evening, the King held an audience with the premier of South Australia Peter Malinauskas. No further details have been released about Harry’s private tea with his father.

Harry landed in London on Monday for the annual WellChild Awards, then travelled to Nottingham on Tuesday for an engagement, followed by a visit to Imperial College London today.

After Harry’s jam-packed trip, and following months of speculation, the estranged father and son have finally met at Clarence House. Charles arrived at the Royal residence at 3:45pm after jetting in from Balmoral earlier this afternoon, while Harry turned up more than an hour later, at 5:20pm.

Before leaving his engagement earlier, Harry told the assembled crowds that he was “running so late”, as he hurriedly left for another meeting. The Duke of Sussex arrived at the back door of Clarence House for the much-anticipated meeting with his father, out of the eyeline of photographers, who were eagerly waiting to snap the moment the father and son reunited.

While Harry did meet with his father privately, the Duke of Sussex has not met with his brother Prince William, or any other member of the Royal family during his rare visit to the UK.

It comes after Harry publicly expressed hopes of a reconciliation with his family in May, telling the BBC that Charles would not speak to him because of his court battle over his security and that he did not know “how much longer my father has”.

Harry last saw his father in February last year when he made a transatlantic dash from his Californian home, where he lives with wife Meghan Markle and their two children, to the UK to see Charles following his cancer diagnosis.

The face-to-face encounter last February appeared to last for as little as 45 minutes – with the latest meeting also lasting less than an hour ahead of Harry’s evening engagement.

Harry, who stepped down from the working monarchy in 2020 along with Meghan, has levelled a barrage of accusations at the King, stepmother the Queen, brother Prince of Wales and sister-in-law the Princess of Wales in his Oprah interview, Netflix documentary, interviews and his autobiography Spare since moving to the US.

Harry remains estranged from his brother William, who has been busying himself with a flurry of engagements this week and was away in Cardiff on Wednesday visiting a new mental health hub on World Suicide Prevention Day.

Senior aides to Charles and Harry were pictured together in London in July, in what was reported to be an initial step towards opening channels of communication between the two households.