Live Like A King For £40k

Kings Road, Chelsea, SW3 flat goes on sale for just £40,000 in an area where a house has been offered for £200 million

Whilst most consider Chelsea – the heart of the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea – ritzy, in March 2014, realty firm Beauchamp Estates bizarrely declared it “a place where servants live.”

Now, contrasting with the sale of what potentially could be “Britain’s most expensive home” in the same area – the £200 million plus ($278 million, €233 million or درهم1 billion) The Old Rectory, Old Church Street, featured in The Steeple Times in May 2019 – a comparative bargain basement property has gone on sale in the vicinity.

Set to be offered in an online auction on Wednesday 14^th July with an estimate of just £40,000 ($56,000, €47,000 or درهم204,000), Flat 10, Blenheim House at 180 Kings Road most certainly must be the cheapest one bedroom flat currently available in the Royal Borough.

Described as “requiring modernisation,” the third floor flat includes an entrance hall, small kitchenette, sitting room, bedroom and en-suite shower room. It is situated at the corner with Burnsall Street and above the Snappy Snaps shop.

The catch? The property is on a lease that has just five years remaining that expires on 16^th September 2026. Unlike with many other properties with such short tenures, however, agents McHugh & Co. state: “If requested by the purchaser prior to completion, the sellers solicitor at the expense of the purchaser will serve notice on the freeholder pursuant to a Section 42 Leasehold Reform Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 and assign the benefit of that notice to the purchaser.”

Curious Facts About The Kings Road

• The 1.9-mile long road was the king’s private road until 1830 and thus some people refer to it as ‘King’s Road’ whilst others simply reference it ‘Kings Road.’
• The World’s End estate takes its name from King James II, who considered the area to be the end of the world when he used to ride down Kings Road.  
• Famous residents have included Sir Arthur and Lady Colefax, Ellen Terry and Peter Ustinov.
• Argyll House (213) is undoubtedly the road’s grandest house. It has been home to the 4^th Duke of Argyll and the 5^th Marquis of Normanby amongst others.
• ‘The Pheasantry’ (152) is now a Pizza Express, but was originally the site of a business breeding exotic pheasants, cattle and foxes. It later became the residence of Eleanor Thornton – who became the inspiration for the Rolls-Royce mascot, the Spirit of Ecstasy – and as “bohemian apartments” housed Eric Clapton, Anthony Haden-Guest and Germaine Greer.
• The Water Rat (383) – now a restaurant named Chicama – was the haunt of the actor and gangster John Bindon in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. A one-time “squeeze” of Princess Margaret, Bindon was known for being able to hang five half-pint beer glasses on his penis.
• In 1876, the world’s first artificial ice rink opened just off the road.
• Sir Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirt movement had a barracks on the road in the 1930s.
• In his 1955 thriller Moonraker, Ian Fleming describes his legendary spy James Bond as residing in “a comfortable flat in a plane tree’d square off the Kings Road.” Another of fiction’s most famous spies, George Smiley (created by John le Carré), lived just off the Kings Road at 9 Bywater Street.
• Dame Mary Quant OBE – inventor of the miniskirt – opened her first boutique in the Kings Road in 1955. It was named Bazaar and now features a blue plaque dedicated to her.
• In the 1960s, the road was the centre of mod culture and later, in the punk and hippie eras, it was dominated by counterculture.
• In 1969, a lion named Christian was purchased from Harrods by John Rendall and Anthony Bourke. He went to live in their furniture store on the Kings Road before later being taken to live in the wild in the Kora National Reserve in Africa.
• Led Zeppelin’s record label Swan Song Records was based at 484 Kings Road from its inception in 1974 until the company closed in 1983.
• The Pet Shop Boys met in an electronic store on the road in 1981.
• The first UK branch of Starbucks opened on the road in 1998.