The Steeple Times

Tag: 20/20

  • Lavish Living and Little Owls at Lilford Hall

    Lavish Living and Little Owls at Lilford Hall

    Crumbling Northamptonshire estate Lilford Hall – where the little owl was introduced to Britain – for sale for £10 million, a sum £35 million lower than in 2014

    • Grade I listed Jacobean mansion with 13 chimney stacks for sale for £10 million; it was for sale last for £44.9 million in 2014 in spite of being listed on English Heritage’s ‘At Risk Register.’
    • Lilford Hall – parts of which have not been occupied since 1947 – is currently owned by a businessman who tried to sell burial plots in the grounds for £1,250 a pop and shares in a yacht loosely associated with Frank Sinatra for £23 each.
    • The 321-acre estate includes not only overgrown parkland, but also a zoo with cages that formerly housed bears and a lake for flamingos.
    • From 1711 until 1990, Lilford House was the seat of the Powys family – the 4th baron is credited with introducing the little owl to the UK.
    • More recently, in 1969, the “sexual mystic” artist Penny Slinger used the at-the-time derelict mansion in one of her best-known works.

    A 32,406 square foot Grade I listed Jacobean mansion 82 miles from Central London has gone on sale for £10 million – or the equivalent of just £308 per square foot.

     

    On this basis, Lilford Hall – set in 321 acres near Oundle – seems a comparative bargain when considered against the £4,786 per square foot sought for a Lennox Gardens, Knightsbridge triplex flat The Steeple Times featured in May, but buyers need to remember this – parts of this crumbling building, most notably the major state rooms, have not been used since 1947.

     

    Marketed last in 2014 for the even more punchy sum of £45 million, the “exceptional residential and amenity estate located on the River Nene,” is now offered by agents Savills. The “wonderfully proportioned” U-shaped mansion itself  is constructed of grey limestone and includes over 100 rooms and amongst them are 7 “impressive” reception rooms, a ballroom, a ‘great chamber’ and 9 bedrooms. In addition, there are two Georgian pavilions that were formerly coach houses and stabling, three cottages, a former zoo, the oldest private softball court in the world, a former flamingo enclosure and a deer park.

     

    “Impressiveness in the chief attribute of Lilford Hall as a specimen of architecture” claimed County Life in 1990 and as the seat of the Powys family from 1711 until 1990, it became not only a Downton Abbey-esque entertaining pad, but also housed nurses in the Second World War. Here, indeed, is an English country house that has seen lavishness and decline and thankfully here is an example that thankfully escaped the wrecking ball wrought so disgracefully on such houses in the 1950s and 1960s.

     

    Fascinatingly in the 1880s, Thomas Powys, 4th Baron Lilford filled his aviaries on the estate with rheas, kiwis, pink-headed ducks, free-flying lammergeiers and it was from here that he also introduced the little owl into the UK. There are said to be around 5,700 breeding pairs today, but sadly, according to the RSPB, their numbers are now in decline.

     

    More recently, in 1969, “sexually erotic” performance artist Penny Slinger took over the by then “derelict” mansion in conjunction with the filmmaker Peter Whitehead. Their resulting work, titled An Exorcism, was exhibited internationally and in 2004, after the current owners, Charles and Aziza Micklewright, acquired the house, they did something equally avant-garde; they attempted to sell burial plots in the grounds to Americans by citing the estate’s connections to the founder of the Brownists, Robert Browne – a man better known as ‘The Father of the Pilgrims’ and ‘The Grandfather of the Nation’ (of the United States of America).

     

    Whilst Mr and Mrs Micklewright were lauded for their considerable efforts towards the “huge task” of restoring Lilford Hall, they came to the attention of Historic England in May 2019 when the building was listed on the At Risk Register. At that time, the Oundle Chronicle reported: “The roof covering is in poor condition leading to water ingress and distress to the upper storeys. The front bays require structural attention. A schedule of urgent repairs has been identified but not implemented, and no long-term solution has been agreed.”

     

    Now, someone with very, very deep pockets is required to restore this gem. It would be helpful if they liked erotic art, bears, squash and owls also.

     

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cii3VlgfVy0
    Lavish Living and Little Owls at Lilford Hall, Northants – £10 million ($12.5 million, €11.1 million or درهم46 million) for The Lilford Hall Estate, Lilford, Oundle, Peterborough, Northamptonshire, PE8 5SG, United Kingdom through estate agents Savills – Crumbling Northamptonshire estate Lilford Hall – where the little owl was introduced to Britain – for sale for £10 million, a sum £35 million lower than in 2014.
    The artwork created by Penny Slinger and Peter Whitehead at the house has been exhibited internationally.

    The Names & Numbers – The Lilford Hall Estate, Lilford, Oundle, Peterborough, Northamptonshire, PE8 5SG, United Kingdom

     

    June 2020 – The estate is listed sale for £10 million ($12.5 million, €11.1 million or درهم46 million) through Savills. It includes 321.31 acres, of which 148.17 acres are pasture land whilst 157.48 acres are woodland. The majority of the estate is held on a freehold title, whilst the remaining 127.6 acres – known as ‘The Linches’ and ‘Lilford Woods’ – are held on a lease with 91 years remaining.

     

    2015 – Promoted as ‘The National Memorial Gardens,’ burial plots in the gardens of the hall were offered “available to any UK resident or national for an outstanding price of only £1,250 ($1,568, €1,393 or درهم5,758)” by Mark Bailey of Harley Investments. Around the same time, a website dedicated to Lilford Hall marketed “a piece of the formal gardens” for sale for £299 ($375, €333 or درهم1,377) to include “an officially certified ‘Squire of Lilford’ [title] … with this little piece of history.”

     

    March 2014 – The Irish Times reported that the asking price for the estate had been increased to £44.9 million ($56.3 million, €50 million or 206.8درهم million). They claimed the agents Coldwell Banker blamed “confusion over currency conversion rates and new instructions from the owner.”

     

    April 2014 – The Lilford Hall Estate is listed for sale through Coldwell Banker on MyHome.ie for £33.7 million ($44.2 million, €37.5 million or درهم155 million) on behalf of “an English gentleman.”

     

    2004 – The estate is acquired by the Micklewright family. Little information is available online about the Old Framlingham Charles Micklewright (born July 1958), but he is described as a “patent attorney” on Companies Houses pages. The businessman is mentioned also as a publisher and trustee of the Marsh Christian Trust elsewhere, whilst his Singaporean born wife, Aziza (born 1964), was a director of Lilford Properties Limited from 2013 to 2018.

     

    A website operated by Sign of the Times Limited, a Hong Kong company of Lilford Hall, Lilford, Oundle, Northamptonshire, PE8 5SG, currently offers shares in a yacht named ‘Sinatra the Voice’ for £23.91 ($29.99, €26.64 or درهم110.14) per share. The boat was built in 1956 and is tenuously linked to Frank Sinatra by the fact that a one-time owner, Beale Poste, loaned it occasionally to the crooner between 1968 and 1974 in West Palm Beach, Florida.

     

    1990 – The estate is closed to the public.

     

    1980s – The house is used as a location in the BBC English Civil War inspired historical drama series By the Sword Divided.

     

    1970s – Aviaries on the estate restocked by George Powys, 7th Baron Lilford (1931 – 2005). He “opened [the estate] to the public as a leisure park” and housed more than 350 birds of 110 species there. It remained thus for around 20 years and included a restaurant and shop. The aviaries and the 1,896 square foot restaurant building remain present still today.

     

    1969 – 1970 – American British “sexual mystic” artist Penny Slinger (born 1947) and Liverpudlian filmmaker Peter Whitehead used the “derelict mansion” as the setting for their works An Exorcism and Lilford Hall. They are lauded as a “photo romance” and exhibited at the Blum and Poe Gallery in Los Angeles in 2014, at the Haywood Gallery in London in 2015 and at the Fortnight Institute in New York in 2019.

     

    1949 – Stephen Powys, 6th Baron Lilford (1869 – 1949) died without having married or having had children. His properties aside from Lilford – a house in Mayfair, Bank Hall in Lancashire and the Bewsey Estate in Cheshire – passed to his second cousin twice removed.

     

    1947 – The estate is sold to a company named Merchant Ventures by the Powys family (though they remain present on the estate until 1990).

     

    1939 – 1945 – During the Second World War, the parkland of the estate was used as a military hospital for nearby airfields. From 1949 to 1954, some of the buildings constructed during this period were then used as a Polish school.

     

    1923 – First-class Northamptonshire cricketer Major John Powys, 5th Baron Lilford (1863 – 1945) built the first private softball court in the world in the grounds of the hall. It is now in disrepair and the roof has fallen into the inner court.

     

    1909 – 1910 – The hall was extended in the Edwardian manner including the provision of a new master bedroom with dressing room and bathroom by William Dunn and Robert Watson of Dunn & Watson.

     

    1901 – The estate surrounding the hall reaches its largest size and totals a vast 8,000 acres of land. Around this time, Queen Mary, wife of King George V, is said to have visited the gardens.

     

    1880s – Ornithologist and expert on the fauna of the Balearics Thomas Littleton Powys, 4th Baron Lilford (1833 – 1896) introduces the little owl into England on the estate. His aviaries were said to “feature exotic birds from all around the world” and a species of European lizard, the Lilford’s wall lizard (Podarcis lilfordi), is named in his honour. The 4th baron is repeatedly mentioned in the works of Charles Darwin for his contribution to the study of the science of evolution.

     

    1840s – Further changes to the building are orchestrated by the architect William Gilbee Habershon (circa 1818 – 1891). The Campaign to Protect Rural England described these Victorian extensions as “sensitive” in 2006 – a rare accolade given most additions to English country houses during this period were simply brash and vulgar.

     

    1740s – The Palladian architect Henry Flitcroft (1697 – 1769) adds “outstanding” Georgian interiors whilst “respecting the hall’s Jacobean exterior.” He “softened and brightened” the building as a result and also “constructed the Georgian pavilions and additional storeys to the east end of the two wings.” Other works by Flitcroft can be seen at Bower House in Essex, Wentworth Woodhouse in Yorkshire and Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire.

     

    1711 – Lilford Hall is sold to the judge and Tory politician Sir Thomas Powys (1649 – 1719), Attorney General to King James II. Powys is best remembered for conducting the prosecution of the Seven Bishops in 1699. He is buried at Lilford.

     

    1630s – Construction of the main exterior of what to this day remains Lilford Hall as a “Jacobean-style gentry house” by William Elmes (the younger).

     

    1473 – The land that forms the estate is acquired by William Browne (1410 – 1489), a wealthy wool merchant and landowner from Stamford, from the estate of Baron Welles (who was beheaded by King Edward IV for treason). In 1495, “in a Tudor style,” he built a hall on the site and it passed to Robert Browne (1550 – 1633), the founder of the Brownists, ‘The Father of the Pilgrims’ and ‘The Grandfather of the Nation’ (of the United States of America).

     

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  • Elevating Count Binface

    Elevating Count Binface

    Poll of 500 Twitter users backs the building of a statue in honour of Count Binface (formerly known as Lord Buckethead)

    Yesterday, The Steeple Times’ Matthew Steeples decided to conduct a poll on Twitter. He jokingly asked: “Would you support the erection of a statue of Count Binface?”

     

    He post-fixed: “He’s surely not offended anyone (other than Boris Johnson and Theresa May).”

     

    The response, thus far, has been phenomenal and at a time when people have been attacking statues of Christopher Columbus, Sir Winston Churchill and Queen Victoria, we perhaps need to ignore Janet Street-Porter’s miserable demand to “junk the lot” and get something erected that celebrates a bit of fun.

     

    Of the 495 votes cast (with 4 hours still to go) in the completely unscientific poll, 94.7% of respondents are currently supporting “Yes – Get him elevated” whilst only 3.2% are of the view “No – He’s off his trolley.” Just 2% haven’t got a clue who Count Binface actually is.

     

    Whilst a legal dispute with the plainly joyless Gremloids creator Todd Durham resulted in the “displacement” of Lord Buckethead – who had stood in four British general elections from 1987 onwards – the political satirist Jon Harvey announced his replacement, Count Binface, to the world on 12th December 2018. He describes the character on Twitter as an “Intergalactic politician and ex-Lord Buckethead,” has a following of 17,600 and was standing in the London mayoral elections until the coronavirus pandemic kicked in.

     

    The Count is good; let’s get him elevated.

     

    Pictured top: Count Binface with a slightly perplexed Boris Johnson.

     

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    Elevating Count Binface – Poll backs statue of Count Binface – Poll of 500 Twitter users backs the erection of a statue in honour of Count Binface (formerly known as Lord Buckethead).
    The “replacement” Lord Buckethead (played by David Hughes) with Count Binface behind him during the 2019 general election campaign; Jon Harvey as Lord Buckethead on the night of the 2017 General Election at Maidenhead.
    Elevating Count Binface – Poll backs statue of Count Binface – Poll of 500 Twitter users backs the erection of a statue in honour of Count Binface (formerly known as Lord Buckethead).
    The Twitter poll had attracted nearly 500 votes as of 10am GMT on Thursday 11th June 2020.
    Elevating Count Binface – Poll backs statue of Count Binface – Poll of 500 Twitter users backs the erection of a statue in honour of Count Binface (formerly known as Lord Buckethead).
    Lord Buckethead (comedian Jon Harvey) on John Oliver’s HBO talk show Last Week with John Oliver in May 2017. He also appeared at the Glastonbury Festival in June that year and even made a video with the all-round oddity Ben Fogle at one point too.
    Elevating Count Binface – Poll backs statue of Count Binface – Poll of 500 Twitter users backs the erection of a statue in honour of Count Binface (formerly known as Lord Buckethead).
    Lord Buckethead with Theresa May in May 2017. He registered 249 votes and that Christmas made a charming YouTube video sharing a message of peace and goodwill. Sadly, that subsequently had to be deleted due to Todd Durham’s legal actions.
  • Gone Fishers Gin-ing!

    Gone Fishers Gin-ing!

    Matthew Steeples visits Aldeburgh in Suffolk to learn the story of a business finding success in lockdown – he discovers Fishers Gin

    Aldeburgh in Suffolk is famous for fish and chips. Two of its chippies are supposedly “amongst the best in the UK,” but now this seaside town is producing something just as quintessentially British – gin.

     

    In a building, modestly described by Andrew Heald, the founder of Fishers Gin, as a ‘beach house’ – in the way that the Pritzkers and Vanderbilts referred to their colossal ‘summer mansions’ in the Hamptons as plain old ‘cottages’ – right on the seafront, is now a distillery and boy is it a smart one.

     

    Unlike most distilleries I’ve visited and unsurprisingly to those that know me, I’ve been to many – normally quite unappealing places stuck in the middle of grim industrial estates in places like Warrington, a town sadly known for having Kerry Katona as its “finest export” – the Fisher’s Gin team work in an office that reminded me of the hideout of Pierce Brosnan as fictional Prime Minister Adam Lang in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts in the 2010 film The Ghost Writer.

     

    Though Fishers Gin was originally presented in colourful packaging that featured an anchor, the design now incorporates “a scallop shell in celebration of Maggi Hambling’s sculpture” – a famed 13-foot high landmark in the town. Named to reflect the history of the fishing village where it is produced, the bottle’s bright colours are said to reflect fishing nets whilst the gin itself has a taste dominated by coastal botanicals.

     

    Stronger than your typical 40% ABV gin at 44%, here is a gin with notes of samphire and bog myrtle and one where hints of salt shine through. A slightly unusual taste follows, but it is refreshingly uplifting and with a team behind it who’ve moved over to selling directly on their own website, here is a business that has adapted to doing things differently due to the COVID-19 lockdown.

     

    Fishers Gin is a gin of maritime origins and it’s a gin to be celebrated like one’s first catch; once you’ve tried it, you’ll be hooked.

     

    To purchase a bottle of Fishers Gin for £39.95 direct from its producers, click here. A Fishers Gin Navy coloured enamel mug can also be bought for £7.95.

     

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    Gone Fishers Gin-ing! The story of Fishers Gin of Aldeburgh – Matthew Steeples visits Aldeburgh in Suffolk to learn the story of a business finding success in lockdown – he discovers Fishers Gin. Andrew Heald, Maggi Hambling, The Ghost Writer, Pierce Brosnan, Roman Polanski, Ewan McGregor, Kim Cattrall.
    The Founder and his Brace of Beagles – Andrew Heald, his hounds (one of which gave its name to the Fishers Gin still, ‘Watson’) and a Fishers Gin Navy enamel mug.
    Gone Fishers Gin-ing! The story of Fishers Gin of Aldeburgh – Matthew Steeples visits Aldeburgh in Suffolk to learn the story of a business finding success in lockdown – he discovers Fishers Gin. Andrew Heald, Maggi Hambling, The Ghost Writer, Pierce Brosnan, Roman Polanski, Ewan McGregor, Kim Cattrall.
    The Botanicals of the Sea – The distinct taste of Fishers Gin comes from the locally sourced plants of the Suffolk coast that it is made with. These include spignel, wood avens, rock samphire flower and bog myrtle. These are sustainably foraged.
    Gone Fishers Gin-ing! The story of Fishers Gin of Aldeburgh – Matthew Steeples visits Aldeburgh in Suffolk to learn the story of a business finding success in lockdown – he discovers Fishers Gin. Andrew Heald, Maggi Hambling, The Ghost Writer, Pierce Brosnan, Roman Polanski, Ewan McGregor, Kim Cattrall.
    The Fishers Gin Distillery – Situated next to The Brudenell Hotel, a building used as a home for children evacuated from Belgium during the Second World War, this beachside building is due to open to visitors once lockdown is over. The view out to sea takes in a series of wind turbines – a topic of conversation best not raised with disapproving locals.
    Gone Fishers Gin-ing! The story of Fishers Gin of Aldeburgh – Matthew Steeples visits Aldeburgh in Suffolk to learn the story of a business finding success in lockdown – he discovers Fishers Gin. Andrew Heald, Maggi Hambling, The Ghost Writer, Pierce Brosnan, Roman Polanski, Ewan McGregor, Kim Cattrall.
    ‘The Ghost Writer’ – The actual filming location used in the 2010 Franco-German-British political thriller was not in Massachusetts, but in Germany. This was due to Roman Polanski being unable to enter Britain or America due to his evasion of justice since 1978. Pictured are the film’s stars Pierce Brosnan, Ewan McGregor and Kim Cattrall in a setting reminiscent to that where Fishers Gin is produced.
    Gone Fishers Gin-ing! The story of Fishers Gin of Aldeburgh – Matthew Steeples visits Aldeburgh in Suffolk to learn the story of a business finding success in lockdown – he discovers Fishers Gin. Andrew Heald, Maggi Hambling, The Ghost Writer, Pierce Brosnan, Roman Polanski, Ewan McGregor, Kim Cattrall.
    ‘Rebel With A Cause’ – Controversial British artist Maggi Hambling CBE (top) and her scallop sculpture at Aldeburgh (below). It was conceived as a celebration of Aldeburgh’s most famous resident, composer Benjamin Britten, and though opposed and covered in graffiti even by some in the locality, Andrew Heald chose to feature it on the label of his gin.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek4hqlWcdd4
  • A Massive Media Maelstrom – McCann, Mandelson and Maxwell

    A Massive Media Maelstrom – McCann, Mandelson and Maxwell

    Matthew Steeples highlights how the ‘Mandelson Media Method’ is very much in play in both the case of the Prince Andrew-Jeffrey Epstein connection and the renewed interest in the Madeleine McCann disappearance

    According to the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan turned activist and human rights campaigner Craig Murray, when Madeleine McCann went missing on 3rd May 2007 “New Labour’s No. 10 saw, in typical Blair fashion, a highly photogenic tragedy which there might be popularity in appearing to work on.”

     

    Guided by the “Prince of Darkness at the heart of New Labour” with “his dark satanic looks” and “his Machiavellian meddling,” the political party Peter Mandelson ever so brilliantly guided (in terms of electoral success) knew the value of such and they well and truly milked it in the matter of McCann.

     

    As Andrew Marr pointed out in his History of Modern Britain – screened on BBC Four last night – in his example, highlighting the case of the senseless murder of the innocent toddler Jamie Bulger by two truly evil teenagers during John Major’s premiership – Madeleine McCann’s disappearance occurred just a month before Blair left office and Gordon Brown took over. News of it dominated the media during the transition period.

     

    Defining the Brown years – during which Peter Mandelson was a government minister from October 2008 until May 2010 – in terms of the vast acres of pages devoted to the case and garnering disproportionate attention from government thus, as Murray pointed out: “British diplomatic staff were under direct instruction to support the McCanns far beyond the usual.”

     

    Mandelson had his finger on the pulse with the McCann story then and today the proof of its usefulness is still in the pudding by way of the fact that it wiped other ‘bad news’ stories off the front pages in the last week. Equally, as has been the case with the renewal of interest in Prince Andrew’s “has he or hasn’t he” cooperated with the investigations into Jeffrey Epstein in the last 24 hours, here are matters that show that the Mandelson style of media management haven’t moved on.

     

    One rather conveniently unavailable person who links the ‘players’ in these matters is still apparently missing in action. Again, this morning, we again join those asking: “Why doesn’t Ghislaine Maxwell finally come forward?”

     

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    A Massive Media Maelstrom – McCann, Mandelson and Maxwell – Matthew Steeples highlights how the ‘Mandelson Media Method’ is very much in play in both the case of the Prince Andrew-Jeffrey Epstein connection and the renewed interest in the Madeleine McCann disappearance.
    Peter Mandelson pictured trying on a belt whilst Jeffrey Epstein looks on in St Barts in 2005. They are said to have been introduced by their mutual friend Ghislaine Maxwell and there is no suggestion that Lord Mandelson knew anything of Epstein’s criminal activities.
    A Massive Media Maelstrom – McCann, Mandelson and Maxwell – Matthew Steeples highlights how the ‘Mandelson Media Method’ is very much in play in both the case of the Prince Andrew-Jeffrey Epstein connection and the renewed interest in the Madeleine McCann disappearance.
    In 2009, private investigators for Gerry and Kate McCann issued an E-FIT to the media of a woman they believed could be “potentially significant” to their investigation. She has never been found, but, speculation online (entirely unproven as accurate thus far) has regularly included: “She looks remarkably like Ghislaine Maxwell.” There is no suggestion that this is one and the same woman, but it would be ever so helpful if Miss Maxwell came forward and cleared this up for once and for all.
    A Massive Media Maelstrom – McCann, Mandelson and Maxwell – Matthew Steeples highlights how the ‘Mandelson Media Method’ is very much in play in both the case of the Prince Andrew-Jeffrey Epstein connection and the renewed interest in the Madeleine McCann disappearance.
    The no-longer so “grand old Duke of York” Prince Andrew poses for a picture with the “master of spin” and king of media relations Lord Mandelson.
    A Massive Media Maelstrom – McCann, Mandelson and Maxwell – Matthew Steeples highlights how the ‘Mandelson Media Method’ is very much in play in both the case of the Prince Andrew-Jeffrey Epstein connection and the renewed interest in the Madeleine McCann disappearance.
    Peter Mandelson worked with PR spinner Matthew Freud, the late Sir Clement Freud’s son, on the Millennium Dome. The pair have partied together on many occasions – including at Freud’s then marital home, Burford Priory, and most famously with George Osborne, Oleg Deripaska and Nat Rothschild in Corfu.
    A Massive Media Maelstrom – McCann, Mandelson and Maxwell – Matthew Steeples highlights how the ‘Mandelson Media Method’ is very much in play in both the case of the Prince Andrew-Jeffrey Epstein connection and the renewed interest in the Madeleine McCann disappearance.
    Pictured top: Paedophile Sir Clement Freud (right) lunched with Gerry (left) and Kate McCann in Praia da Luz in Portugal in July 2007, two months after their daughter’s disappearance. Mrs McCann later praised the risotto as “the best she’d ever tasted.” Pictured below: Ghislaine Maxwell pictured at the launch of a book about Sir Clement’s brother, Lucian, titled ‘Breakfast With Lucian’ in 2013 by Geordie Greig. Also in the image are Nicholas Coleridge, Piers Morgan, an unknown child, Geordie Greig and Ariadne Calvo-Platero.
  • Moron of the Moment – Lady Victoria Hervey

    Moron of the Moment – Lady Victoria Hervey

    Just as ultimate dumbo Lady Victoria Hervey shows herself up in stating “Fuck Black Lives Matter,” fellow aristo Dr. Bendor Grosvenor calls for the return of objects “looted during the British Empire”

    Dimwitted dope Lady Victoria Hervey just cannot help but shove her stilettos straight into the proverbial. Whether be it her short-lived relationship with “he who doesn’t sweat in Pizza Express (Woking branch’)” ‘Randy’ Prince Andrew, or flogging knickers in her long since gone-bust shop in Knightsbridge displaying the words “Yes Please” across the crotch, here is a woman with utterly no shame and an utter incapacity to accept any kind of blame for her own failings.

     

    Formerly nicknamed ‘Toff Totty Vicky,’ Lady Victoria predictably showed herself up by banging on about her associations with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell last year. This weekend, the bubbly blonde went further in posting a picture of the defaced statute of the Confederate general Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia on her Instagram page. She not-so charmingly captioned the snap: “Don’t ever tell me this is acceptable behavior [sic]. Fuck BLM [Black Lives Matter].”

     

    Described by even a fellow socialite, the late Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, as “unpleasant” and “a right snob” previously, “luxury is in my blood” Lady Victoria was contradicted by the Reverend Robert W. Lee IV, the general’s great-great-grandson. He “gave his blessing for the monument to be removed” on Thursday according to the BBC and asked: “If today is not the right time, when will it be the right time [to remove the statue]?”

     

    Going further of this situation on Twitter on Sunday, though talking in the context of the related British protests, fellow aristocrat Dr. Bendor Grosvenor – a distant relative of the present Duke of Westminster and a man best known for his stint on the BBC’s Fake or Fortune? art documentary series – tweeted:

     

    “Let the Colston statue’s removal be a prompt for councils and museums across Britain to take action to remove similar artworks from display, *as well as* returning the thousands of cultural objects looted during the British Empire. Start now. We’ve waited too long.”

     

    Sadly, yet not unsurprisingly, Lady Victoria – whose ancestor Frederick Hervey, 1st Marquess of Bristol ironically is best remembered as a “social reformer” and “an MP [who] voted for the abolition of slavery in 1807” – has previous form. In 2003, this ‘aristoprat’ stated: “It’s so bad being homeless in winter. They should go somewhere warm like the Caribbean where they can eat fresh fish all day.”

     

    Shame on this irrelevant ignoramus; it’s not Black Lives that don’t matter, it’s instead Victoria Hervey that doesn’t matter.

     

    Moron of the Moment – Lady Victoria Hervey on Black Lives Matters – Just as ultimate dumbo Lady Victoria Hervey shows herself up in stating “Fuck Black Lives Matter,” fellow aristocrat Dr. Bendor Grosvenor calls for the return of objects “looted during the British Empire”
    Lady Victoria Hervey with the Duke of York at a social gathering; supporter of the abolition of slavery and “social reformer” Frederick William Hervey, 5th Earl and 1st Marquess of Bristol (1769 – 1859).
    Moron of the Moment – Lady Victoria Hervey on Black Lives Matters – Just as ultimate dumbo Lady Victoria Hervey shows herself up in stating “Fuck Black Lives Matter,” fellow aristocrat Dr. Bendor Grosvenor calls for the return of objects “looted during the British Empire”
    Lady Victoria Hervey’s offensive Instagram post was unsurprisingly met with disdain by many. One responded: “Wait, hold up Lady are you saying Fuck Black Lives ???” Another added: “But think you got to be careful saying fuck BLM… That’s not acceptable TBH. It’s offensive.”
    Moron of the Moment – Lady Victoria Hervey on Black Lives Matters – Just as ultimate dumbo Lady Victoria Hervey shows herself up in stating “Fuck Black Lives Matter,” fellow aristocrat Dr. Bendor Grosvenor calls for the return of objects “looted during the British Empire”
    Dr. Bendor Grosvenor’s, by contrast, sensible tweet.

    Classic clangers from former ‘It Girl’ Lady Victoria Hervey:

     

    “I am Lady Victoria Hervey – it doesn’t get more British than that.”

     

    “Unless it’s champagne, I can’t handle it.”

     

    “I do have a day job.”

     

    “My career always goes much better when I haven’t got a man.”

     

    “A baby is easy – you hand them over to a nanny!”

     

    “I’m not stupid. I’m not a dumb model.”                    

     

    “[I aim to become] the next Kate Winslet – but with class.”

     

    “I have had four past lives, three of them as a man. I was a composer in 17th-century Paris, I made materials in India and in Ancient Greece I was a famous politician. In Ancient Egypt I was keeper of the oils for the Pharaoh’s wife, and I love oils so it all kind of fits.”

     

    “What annoys me is when these families have got like 12 children and we’re paying for these kids… They work out that they make more money being on the dole than having a job, they just laze around.”

     

    “The real irony of this is that the poor get poorer and the rich get richer.”

     

    “Travelling is in my blood, and so is liking luxurious things and spending.”

     

    “I haven’t given up on men, there are a few of them around, but I keep leaving every city I meet them in.”

     

    “Everyone from Europe wants to buy houses in LA.”

     

    “I was too old for Jeffrey Epstein… [He seemed] very charming… He was a very well-liked guy.”

     

    “I’m not one of those kind of girls, I don’t like going to dinners with ten models invited… I was very young and impressionable, Jeffrey was a very charismatic man.”

     

    “I haven’t seen [Ghislaine Maxwell] since September [2018] at a friend’s baby shower… I don’t think anyone is going to find her. She’s gone far away. She’s a bit like a James Bond character. She’s quite a unique person and I don’t believe anyone is going to find her… I don’t think we will ever see her again, it’s going to be like Robert Maxwell continued; she will continue that family mystery.”

     

    “I had no idea what was going on [with Jeffrey Epstein]… It’s extraordinary it’s the case, it’s a wild story.”

     

    “I suddenly thought, I’m just Victoria Hervey… Horrible.”

     

    “I don’t want to make enemies.”

     

    Pictured top: Lady Victoria Hervey with Ghislaine Maxwell, the alleged madam and procurer of girls for paedophile Jeffey Epstein.

     

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  • A Really Useful Angelis

    A Really Useful Angelis

    Matthew Steeples remembers the Liverpudlian actor and voice of ‘Thomas & Friends’ Michael Angelis who sadly passed away yesterday

    Screen and voice actor Michael Angelis was the narrator of Thomas & Friends for twenty-one years. He took over the role from Ringo Starr and in tribute, following his death, Doctor Who writer Harry Draper remarked of him on Twitter: “Thank you, Michael. You were far more than just Really Useful.”

     

    Born in Liverpool in 1952, Angelis appeared in everything from A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square to Boys from the Blackstuff and Lovejoy. He was subsequently married to his Coronation Street co-star Helen Worth from 1991 to 2001 and other credits included Bergerac, Crown Court, Hazell, Midsomer Murders, Minder and Z-Cars.

     

    An amiable sort and often spotted socialising in Chelsea at such places as The Sydney Arms, Angelis lived for many years just to the south of Albert Bridge. More recently, this lively Liverpudlian moved to the countryside with his delightful second wife, Jennifer, and after passing away suddenly yesterday will be missed by many. As a fan concluded: “He was the voice of my childhood… He brought us all a lot of happiness.”

     

    Pictured top: Thomas The Tank Engine, Michael Angelis (18th January 1952 – 30th May 2020) and his wife Jennifer.

     

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    A Really Useful Angelis – Michael Angelis (18th January 1952 – 30th May 2020) – Matthew Steeples remembers the Liverpudlian actor and voice of ‘Thomas & Friends’ Michael Angelis.
    On Twitter, actor and comedian Matt Lucas paid tribute by remarking: “Michael Angelis was one of the greatest TV actors I’ve ever seen. His work with Alan Bleasdale was tremendous. What a loss.” Here he is pictured in a scene from the BBC’s ‘Single Voices’ in the monologue ‘The Last Supper’ in 1989.
  • An Agusta Ape

    An Agusta Ape

    1978 Piaggio Ape ‘limousine’ used by the controversial Countess Agusta – a woman who either fell or was pushed to her death from her home above Portofino in 2001 – to be auctioned

    On 8th January 2001, “shop assistant turned model turned multi-millionairess many times over turned fugitive” (via a stretch in what American’s so pleasantly term ‘pokey’) Countess Francesca Vacca Agusta “disappeared” from the terrace of her Ligurian seaside home. The series of events that preceded and followed could have featured in an Agatha Christie novel or a Sherlock Holmes story.

     

    Situated dominant above the “requisite stop for billionaires” that is Portofino – a colourfully painted former fishing village now peppered with Salvatore Ferragamo and Louis Vuitton stores – Villa Altachiara became the residence of the “embodiment of La Dolce Vita” Francesca Graffagni after she met the “helicopter entrepreneur” Count Corradino Agusta in the 1960s.

     

    Graffagni saw off the business tycoon’s first wife, Pupetta Maresca, after a torrid affair and following their marriage in 1974, amongst other things, became chatelaine of a 40-room property complete with a helipad. It had been built in 1870 by George Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon – whose death was attributed by amongst others Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to the “curse of King Tut” – as his holiday home and during the 1970s and 1980s guests to “jet-set parties” given at the house by the socialite Countess were ferried back and forth from their dock in Portofino harbour in a custom built 1978 Piaggio Ape coachbuilt ‘limousine.’ This vehicle, described as a “perfect yacht tender” with its opulently patterned interior and passenger-driver intercom, is now for sale.

     

    An Agusta Ape – £50k for Piaggio Ape used by Countess Francesca Agusta (1942 – 2001) – 1978 Piaggio Ape ‘limousine’ by Pavesi used by the controversial Countess Agusta – a very wealthy woman who either fell or was pushed to her death from her home above Portofino, Italy in 2001 – to be auctioned by RM Sotheby’s as part of their ‘Driving Into Summer’ 21st to 29th May 2020 auction with an estimate of £37,000 to £49,000 ($45,000 to $60,000, €42,000 to €55,000 or درهم165,000 to درهم220,000).
    Countess Francesca Agusta (née Francesca Vacca Graffagni, 29th October 1942 – 8th January 2001). It is most surprising that the late Dominick Dunne did not make a television programme about her life and demise.
    An Agusta Ape – £50k for Piaggio Ape used by Countess Francesca Agusta (1942 – 2001) – 1978 Piaggio Ape ‘limousine’ by Pavesi used by the controversial Countess Agusta – a very wealthy woman who either fell or was pushed to her death from her home above Portofino, Italy in 2001 – to be auctioned by RM Sotheby’s as part of their ‘Driving Into Summer’ 21st to 29th May 2020 auction with an estimate of £37,000 to £49,000 ($45,000 to $60,000, €42,000 to €55,000 or درهم165,000 to درهم220,000).
    Villa Altachiara (alternatively known as ‘Villa Alta Chiara’ or ‘Villa Carnarvon’) was one of Countess Agusta’s homes from the 1960s until her death in 2001; it was originally built as a holiday home for Lord Carnarvon (26th June 1866 – 5th April 1923) – the financier of Howard Carter’s explorations of Egypt’s Valley of the Kings that led to the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb. The Carnarvon family hosted many guests during their ownership, amongst them Brooke Astor and Evelyn Waugh.

    Count Agusta died in 1989 without divorcing his second wife in spite of separating from her in 1985. At that time, in addition to Villa Altachiara, he had given her four apartments in Milan, an estate in Cuernavaca, Mexico, family jewellery and an undisclosed cash sum. With his demise, she came into yet further fortune.

     

    This by-then “very wealthy woman” hit the headlines again in 1994 when she and her new lover, a “former Portofino playboy politician [named] Maurizio Raggio,” were discovered to have been part of a corruption scandal involving Bettino Craxi, the Prime Minister of Italy from 1983 to 1987. Before police could apprehend them to charge them with amongst other things money laundering, the pair fled to Mexico and lived on her estate until 1997 as fugitives. During this period, the Countess reportedly attempted suicide at least once.

     

    Upon her return to Italy, the Countess plea-bargained and spent just three months in Milan’s Opera prison for her crimes in spite of receiving a two-year jail sentence. After “some further time under house arrest” in the Villa Altachiara, the “retired” gadabout then took up with a Mexican, Tirso ‘Tito’ Chazaro (also known as ‘Tirso Di Ricardo’ and ‘Rafael Tirso Roncado Gonzales’), and lived in the style of Miss Havisham. She was rarely seen in public and having become dependent on drink and drugs, was known for her erratic behaviour and temper.

     

    “Considerably the worse for wear and muttering she would not be coming back” on the night of 8th January 2001, the Countess supposedly told her lover and two others present that she was going for a swim, but either slipped on wet leaves or was pushed off a veranda into the sea. A search followed, but after the only traces found were the Countess’s dressing gown on the seabed close to the Villa Altachiara and her slippers on nearby rocks, press reports suggested she had either committed suicide or, given her past form, staged an “elaborate disappearing act.”

     

    Countess Agusta’s badly decomposed body washed up three weeks later on a beach at Toulon on the French Riviera. Her feet had been gnawed off by fish, her skull was smashed and her face was disfigured. She could only be identified by two rings she was wearing and her exact cause of death could thus not be determined.

     

    As an autopsy found no trace of water in her lungs, she plainly did not die by drowning, but in in 2004 the Countess’s brother, Domenico Vacca Graffagni, was quoted in the Independent as stating: “The [original] inquiry was closed in a hasty fashion because of absence of proof, relying too readily on ‘reasonable doubt’ … It was manslaughter. He [Chazaro] was always beating her. He didn’t mean to kill her. But that evening things didn’t go the way the Carabinieri said, my sister was not drunk and she did not slip on wet leaves on the veranda.”

     

    Adding further to speculation, much earlier, the Countess’s step-son, racing driver and team owner Rocky Agusta (1950 – 2018), told Corriere della Sera in 2001: “Francesca was a beautiful woman, simpatica, very rich… People have written that she inherited 500bn lire, but if it had been only 50 or 25, who commits suicide with 25bn lire set aside? … The people who were around her certainly did not help her…  It’s not up to me to formulate accusations, but Francesca was not alone that night. She was very upset. She should have been put to bed. Instead, they let her go out into a dark, wet, cold night, not even dressed.”

     

    In due course, the last of many wills left by Countess Agusta revealed Tirso Chazaro to be her sole beneficiary, but after this was challenged in court by her former lover, Maurizio Raggio, the pair split the legacy – reported to be worth as much as £165 million ($201 million, €186 million or درهم738 million) according to the Guardian in 2001 – sixty-forty between them.

     

    In 2009, the Villa Altachiara was offered for sale initially for £44 million ($54 million, €50 million or درهم198 million) and then for £30 million ($37 million, €34 million or درهم135 million) in 2014. It supposedly eventually sold for less than half that sum to a Russian billionaire a number of years later in spite of an estate agent remarking: “Some say the spirit of Countess Francesca Vacca Agusta still walks the estate looking for her husband and you can hear her shouting for him on the wind.”

     

    An estimate of £37,000 to £49,000 ($45,000 to $60,000, €42,000 to €55,000 or درهم165,000 to درهم220,000) for the Countess’s Piaggio Ape. Described as “sweet” and “[anything but] an Italian tuk-tuk” by RideApart, the one-off private taxi will be auctioned as part of the forthcoming RM Sotheby’s ‘Driving Into Summer’ 21st to 29th May 2020 online sale. One can only hope it finds a happier home than it encountered at that of its former mistress.

     

    Facebook: @TheSteepleTimes

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    An Agusta Ape – £50k for Piaggio Ape used by Countess Francesca Agusta (1942 – 2001) – 1978 Piaggio Ape ‘limousine’ by Pavesi used by the controversial Countess Agusta – a very wealthy woman who either fell or was pushed to her death from her home above Portofino, Italy in 2001 – to be auctioned by RM Sotheby’s as part of their ‘Driving Into Summer’ 21st to 29th May 2020 auction with an estimate of £37,000 to £49,000 ($45,000 to $60,000, €42,000 to €55,000 or درهم165,000 to درهم220,000).
    An Agusta Ape – £50k for Piaggio Ape used by Countess Francesca Agusta (1942 – 2001) – 1978 Piaggio Ape ‘limousine’ by Pavesi used by the controversial Countess Agusta – a very wealthy woman who either fell or was pushed to her death from her home above Portofino, Italy in 2001 – to be auctioned by RM Sotheby’s as part of their ‘Driving Into Summer’ 21st to 29th May 2020 auction with an estimate of £37,000 to £49,000 ($45,000 to $60,000, €42,000 to €55,000 or درهم165,000 to درهم220,000).
    An Agusta Ape – £50k for Piaggio Ape used by Countess Francesca Agusta (1942 – 2001) – 1978 Piaggio Ape ‘limousine’ by Pavesi used by the controversial Countess Agusta – a very wealthy woman who either fell or was pushed to her death from her home above Portofino, Italy in 2001 – to be auctioned by RM Sotheby’s as part of their ‘Driving Into Summer’ 21st to 29th May 2020 auction with an estimate of £37,000 to £49,000 ($45,000 to $60,000, €42,000 to €55,000 or درهم165,000 to درهم220,000).
    An Agusta Ape – £50k for Piaggio Ape used by Countess Francesca Agusta (1942 – 2001) – 1978 Piaggio Ape ‘limousine’ by Pavesi used by the controversial Countess Agusta – a very wealthy woman who either fell or was pushed to her death from her home above Portofino, Italy in 2001 – to be auctioned by RM Sotheby’s as part of their ‘Driving Into Summer’ 21st to 29th May 2020 auction with an estimate of £37,000 to £49,000 ($45,000 to $60,000, €42,000 to €55,000 or درهم165,000 to درهم220,000).
    An Agusta Ape – £50k for Piaggio Ape used by Countess Francesca Agusta (1942 – 2001) – 1978 Piaggio Ape ‘limousine’ by Pavesi used by the controversial Countess Agusta – a very wealthy woman who either fell or was pushed to her death from her home above Portofino, Italy in 2001 – to be auctioned by RM Sotheby’s as part of their ‘Driving Into Summer’ 21st to 29th May 2020 auction with an estimate of £37,000 to £49,000 ($45,000 to $60,000, €42,000 to €55,000 or درهم165,000 to درهم220,000).
    An Agusta Ape – £50k for Piaggio Ape used by Countess Francesca Agusta (1942 – 2001) – 1978 Piaggio Ape ‘limousine’ by Pavesi used by the controversial Countess Agusta – a very wealthy woman who either fell or was pushed to her death from her home above Portofino, Italy in 2001 – to be auctioned by RM Sotheby’s as part of their ‘Driving Into Summer’ 21st to 29th May 2020 auction with an estimate of £37,000 to £49,000 ($45,000 to $60,000, €42,000 to €55,000 or درهم165,000 to درهم220,000).
    An Agusta Ape – £50k for Piaggio Ape used by Countess Francesca Agusta (1942 – 2001) – 1978 Piaggio Ape ‘limousine’ by Pavesi used by the controversial Countess Agusta – a very wealthy woman who either fell or was pushed to her death from her home above Portofino, Italy in 2001 – to be auctioned by RM Sotheby’s as part of their ‘Driving Into Summer’ 21st to 29th May 2020 auction with an estimate of £37,000 to £49,000 ($45,000 to $60,000, €42,000 to €55,000 or درهم165,000 to درهم220,000).
    An Agusta Ape – £50k for Piaggio Ape used by Countess Francesca Agusta (1942 – 2001) – 1978 Piaggio Ape ‘limousine’ by Pavesi used by the controversial Countess Agusta – a very wealthy woman who either fell or was pushed to her death from her home above Portofino, Italy in 2001 – to be auctioned by RM Sotheby’s as part of their ‘Driving Into Summer’ 21st to 29th May 2020 auction with an estimate of £37,000 to £49,000 ($45,000 to $60,000, €42,000 to €55,000 or درهم165,000 to درهم220,000).
    An Agusta Ape – £50k for Piaggio Ape used by Countess Francesca Agusta (1942 – 2001) – 1978 Piaggio Ape ‘limousine’ by Pavesi used by the controversial Countess Agusta – a very wealthy woman who either fell or was pushed to her death from her home above Portofino, Italy in 2001 – to be auctioned by RM Sotheby’s as part of their ‘Driving Into Summer’ 21st to 29th May 2020 auction with an estimate of £37,000 to £49,000 ($45,000 to $60,000, €42,000 to €55,000 or درهم165,000 to درهم220,000).
    An Agusta Ape – £50k for Piaggio Ape used by Countess Francesca Agusta (1942 – 2001) – 1978 Piaggio Ape ‘limousine’ by Pavesi used by the controversial Countess Agusta – a very wealthy woman who either fell or was pushed to her death from her home above Portofino, Italy in 2001 – to be auctioned by RM Sotheby’s as part of their ‘Driving Into Summer’ 21st to 29th May 2020 auction with an estimate of £37,000 to £49,000 ($45,000 to $60,000, €42,000 to €55,000 or درهم165,000 to درهم220,000).
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaGavF50j98
  • Bonded to a Short Lease

    Bonded to a Short Lease

    Eaton Square apartment in a Grade II* listed building that has been home to both Bond star Sir Roger Moore and aristocrat-who-went-missing Lord Lucan for sale for staggering sum given it is on a lease of just 15 years

    Best known for playing the British secret agent James Bond in seven feature films from 1973 to 1985, Sir Roger Moore KBE (1927 – 2017) once remarked: “I enjoy being a highly paid actor.” He added: “It’s easy to sit in relative luxury and peace and pontificate on the subject of the Third World debts,” though in his various homes in such places as London, Monaco and Switzerland, he certainly illustrated that he took the bit about opulence seriously indeed.

     

    Now, someone with aspirations to live like “the definitive Bond” has the opportunity to purchase an apartment in an Eaton Square building where not only he resided, but one that was also a childhood home of the most famous aristocrat to go missing ever, the 7th Earl of Lucan (born 1934, last seen alive in 1974, declared dead in 2016).

     

    John Bingham, better known as ‘Lucky’ or Lord Lucan, is said to have returned to London from wartime exile in New York in February 1945 with his siblings to find: “As they walked past their home at Cheyne Walk, they realised the whole building had been bombed. Their other family home at 22 Eaton Square had no windows due to the blow of a bomb and rationing was in full swing.”

     

    The apartment available now has windows complete with actual glass in-situ and is situated in what was once a single-family residence. It extends to 927 square foot and consists of a reception room with open plan kitchen, two bedrooms, one bathroom and one shower room. There are wooden floors throughout and the space has air conditioning also.

     

    The fourth floor flat at 22 Eaton Square is offered by estate agents Ayrton Wylie at a price of £795,000 ($1 million, €914,000 or درهم3.7 million) or the equivalent of £53,000 per year ($66,700, €60,900 or درهم244,800 per year). Its lease expires on the 23rd February 2035 and an annual service charge of £6,779 per year ($8,526, €7,791 or درهم31,313 per year) is payable also.

     

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    Bonded to a Short Lease – £795,000 for Fourth Floor at 22 Eaton Square, Belgravia, London, SW1W 9DE, United Kingdom flat on 15-year lease – Eaton Square apartment in a Grade II* listed building that has been home to both Bond star Sir Roger Moore and notorious aristocrat Lord Lucan for sale for staggering sum given it is on a lease of just 15 years. Available through estate agents Ayrton Wylie.
    Bonded to a Short Lease – £795,000 for Fourth Floor at 22 Eaton Square, Belgravia, London, SW1W 9DE, United Kingdom flat on 15-year lease – Eaton Square apartment in a Grade II* listed building that has been home to both Bond star Sir Roger Moore and notorious aristocrat Lord Lucan for sale for staggering sum given it is on a lease of just 15 years. Available through estate agents Ayrton Wylie.
    Bonded to a Short Lease – £795,000 for Fourth Floor at 22 Eaton Square, Belgravia, London, SW1W 9DE, United Kingdom flat on 15-year lease – Eaton Square apartment in a Grade II* listed building that has been home to both Bond star Sir Roger Moore and notorious aristocrat Lord Lucan for sale for staggering sum given it is on a lease of just 15 years. Available through estate agents Ayrton Wylie.
    Bonded to a Short Lease – £795,000 for Fourth Floor at 22 Eaton Square, Belgravia, London, SW1W 9DE, United Kingdom flat on 15-year lease – Eaton Square apartment in a Grade II* listed building that has been home to both Bond star Sir Roger Moore and notorious aristocrat Lord Lucan for sale for staggering sum given it is on a lease of just 15 years. Available through estate agents Ayrton Wylie.
    Bonded to a Short Lease – £795,000 for Fourth Floor at 22 Eaton Square, Belgravia, London, SW1W 9DE, United Kingdom flat on 15-year lease – Eaton Square apartment in a Grade II* listed building that has been home to both Bond star Sir Roger Moore and notorious aristocrat Lord Lucan for sale for staggering sum given it is on a lease of just 15 years. Available through estate agents Ayrton Wylie.
  • The Ever So Dry Land of No Milk & No Honey

    The Ever So Dry Land of No Milk & No Honey

    Jonathan Downey, owner of London’s Milk & Honey bar, takes to social media to share news he won’t be reopening without a rent holiday; it is likely he is set to head a wave of similar announcements

    Just as happened to venues like Keith McNally’s Lucky Strike in New York, a wave – perhaps, excuse the pun, even a flood – of closures of bars and restaurants is likely coming in London and across the rest of the UK. As a result of coronavirus most recently and due also to landlord’s charging extortionate rents and council’s levying excessive business rates in the years prior, we could soon sadly end up with far ‘drier’ high streets.

     

    On Wednesday night on Facebook, in an impassioned plea, the owner of the Soho institution that is Milk & Honey – a “prohibition-style speakeasy cocktail bar” where ‘house rules’ include: “Gentlemen will remove their hats. Hooks are provided. Gentlemen will not introduce themselves to ladies. Ladies, feel free to start a conversation or ask the bartender to introduce you. If a man you don’t know speaks to you, please lift your chin slightly and ignore him” – Jonathan Downey shared news that post the coronavirus lockdown ending, his venue might “never reopen.”

     

    In his post, multiple venue owner-operator Mr Downey stated:

     

    This is Milk & Honey in Soho. A very special place that was 18yrs old last week. It’s been the ‘World’s Best Bar’ (a few times) and the making of so many great bartenders, but we may never re-open. Our annual rent is £210,000 but, despite the current closure and no hope of re-opening for months, our landlord won’t allow any deferral or rent free. He expects payments to be made upfront. He’s got no chance.

     

    One of three things will happen (in most likely first order):

     

    – We give the keys back.

    – We get a 9 month #NationalRentFree and re-open paying rent for another 18yrs.

    – The landlord backs down/sees sense.

     

    I’ve written back to our landlord. I don’t expect we’ll get anywhere and without a #NationalTimeOut, we won’t be able to re-open Milk & Honey. Including VAT, we’ve paid more than £3.9m rent in 18yrs.

     

    Going further, Downey shared the letter he’d written to his landlord. It read:

     

    We won’t be paying any rent on this site again this year. I’m sorry but you’re kidding yourselves if you think otherwise. We have no income.

     

    We have been paying rent there for 18 years, totaling in excess of £3m. We have no idea when we may be allowed to re-open. Even when we are allowed to re-open, we won’t because fear of the virus and physical distancing will mean we will be loss-making. The best (and possibly only) time we can expect to re-open is once a vaccine becomes widely available. Until then, zero income = zero rent.

     

    I have been campaigning for a #NationalTimeOut for tenants and landlords, which includes a 9 month #NationalRentFree. If we get this, then there may be a way through for all of us. Otherwise, we’ll be giving back the keys and surrendering the very valuable 03:00 licence.

     

    I am happy to discuss if you want but that’s our position and we don’t have any other.

     

    The Dry Land of No Milk & No Honey – Milk & Honey Soho likely to close – Jonathan Downey, owner of London’s Milk & Honey bar, takes to social media to announce he won’t be reopening without a rent holiday.
    Jonathan Downey (right) shared his sentiments on the future of the bar he set up in 2002, Milk & Honey, 61 Poland Street, Soho, London, W1F 7NU in a Facebook post on Wednesday.
    The Dry Land of No Milk & No Honey – Milk & Honey Soho likely to close – Jonathan Downey, owner of London’s Milk & Honey bar, takes to social media to announce he won’t be reopening without a rent holiday.
    Mr Downey also published the text of a letter he had sent to his plainly thus far unsympathetic landlord.

    Previously, in an interview with The Caterer earlier this month, Downey commented:

     

    The best thing for most people in our industry is a National Time Out – nine months rent-free, with a matching debt repayment holiday for our landlords. Understandably the pubcos don’t like it, but it is being supported by UKHospitality.

     

    We can’t each negotiate 150,000 separate agreements with landlords. We need a national arrangement that everybody falls in line with, that the government decides and legislates on.

     

    We should get the rest of this year rent-free – for most businesses it’s the biggest single cost apart from staff – and extend loan terms for landlords, because if they can’t get their rent for nine months, they can’t repay the debt for the premises. If they have borrowed, they should get a nine-month repayment break. It should be pushed back onto the banks – they can handle nine months of not having loans repaid.

     

    Of the longer-term, he added:

     

    I don’t see anybody doing well. Nobody will do well out of the crisis. I think there will be even more empty high street sites. My next business will probably have to be something outside the hospitality industry. Certainly, the business I’m in – large-capacity venues – I don’t see coming back until there’s a vaccine, which is a year or maybe 18 months away. Maybe I’ll take a year off and come back in the way that music festivals will have to. We needed a shake-up as an industry, but we didn’t need one so brutal.

     

    That, to a large extent, the business model of a lot of hospitality businesses is hopelessly flawed. It’s ridiculously fragile, the margins are far too slim and it’s just not sustainable. We were fucked after 10 days to two weeks of no and low income.

     

    I think there’s going to be a lot of reflection and soul-searching and realising that, despite these brilliant things we do as individuals and businesses, if the business model doesn’t stack up, you’ve got to find another way or find something else to do.

     

    We can’t pay people what we need to pay them, we can’t pay the rent, we can’t deal with business rates at this level and with VAT at 20%. It’s just insane. Everybody wants something for nothing. In hospitality we always try to deliver, but this has made us realise we can’t deliver the impossible or the unsustainable.

     

    Since its inception, The Steeple Times has advocated the premise of ‘use it or lose it’ for bars and restaurants and today we join Jonathan Downey in calling for #NationalRentFree and #NationalTimeOut. Now, we must all unite in coming together to support our favourite establishments as otherwise, just like many of us found with the closure of the very much missed La Brasserie in South Kensington in March 2017, we’ll again be left crying into our caipirinhas with nowhere to go.

     

    Facebook: @TheSteepleTimes

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  • A Borderline Bonfire Bargain

    A Borderline Bonfire Bargain

    Manhattan mansion listed for 77% less than in 2014 as part of a “bankruptcy sale;” it is situated on a street featured in Billy Joel’s ‘Close to the Borderline’ that was once termed: “Bloody, Bloody Beekman Place: Where the Wealthy Wind Up Dead”

    On 10th April 1936, Good Friday, a writer named Nancy Titterton was found dead in her bathtub at the home she shared with her husband at 22 Beekman Place in Manhattan. She had been raped and strangled by an upholsterer’s assistant, John Fiorenza, who had ironically repaired a loveseat for the couple. The case of the ‘Beauty in the Bathtub’ ended with Fiorenza’s conviction and execution at Sing Sing on 22nd January 1937, but for Beekman Place this was not the first nor last murder.

     

    Aside from the killing of Dr Fritz Gebhardt, an industrialist and associate of Hermann Göring, by his lover Vera Stretz in a hotel in the street on 12th November 1935, on 4th January 2015, a Princeton graduate named Tommy Gilbert, Jr. shot his financier father in the head at his apartment at 20 Beekman Place. Prior to committing the murder, after a row about his monthly allowance, the 30-year old had sent his mother out to buy him a can of Coca Cola and a sandwich. As a result of these series of slayings, in January 2015, the Daily Beast ran an article about the street with the headline: “Bloody, Bloody Beekman Place: Where the Wealthy Wind Up Dead.”

     

    A Borderline Bonfire Bargain – 77% off 29 Beekman Place, NYC – Manhattan mansion listed for 77% less than in 2014 in “bankruptcy sale;” £9.22 million ($11.45 million) for 29 Beekman Place, Midtown East, Manhattan, New York, NY 10022, United States of America through Compass in 2020 down from £40.2 million ($49.9 million) in 2014. Built in 1934 for CBS chief executive William S. Paley. Home to Albert and Mary Lasker and Princess Ashraf Pahlavi. Murders of Nancy Titterton, Dr Fritz Gebhardt and Thomas Gilbert, Sr.
    The naked body of 33-year-old Nancy Titterton was discovered in her bathtub at 22 Beekman Place on 10th April 1936; “Pampered Ivy-leaguer” Tommy Gilbert, Jr. was sentenced to 30 years to life in jail in September 2019 for murdering his father, Thomas Gilbert, Sr. in his apartment at 20 Beekman Place in January 2015.
    A Borderline Bonfire Bargain – 77% off 29 Beekman Place, NYC – Manhattan mansion listed for 77% less than in 2014 in “bankruptcy sale;” £9.22 million ($11.45 million) for 29 Beekman Place, Midtown East, Manhattan, New York, NY 10022, United States of America through Compass in 2020 down from £40.2 million ($49.9 million) in 2014. Built in 1934 for CBS chief executive William S. Paley. Home to Albert and Mary Lasker and Princess Ashraf Pahlavi. Murders of Nancy Titterton, Dr Fritz Gebhardt and Thomas Gilbert, Sr.
    Owners of 29 Beekman Place – Mary Lasker, William S. Paley and Princess Ashraf Pahlavi.

    Now, for altogether different reasons, the street – whose more ‘happy’ residents have included variously not just the Second Lady of the United States, Happy Rockefeller, but also Prince Aly Khan and A&P supermarket heir Huntington Hartford – Beekman Place is making headlines once again.

     

    Whilst the asking prices of properties are often reduced, the case of 22 Beekman Place is an extreme one. Built in 1934 for William S. Paley, the man who “turned CBS from a small radio network into the foremost radio and television network in the United States,” and owned subsequently by a philanthropist and then the twin sister of the Shah of Iran, the house was placed for sale for the plainly extremely over-ambitious sum of £40.2 million in February 2014.

     

    In the period since, the nine floor, 12,260 square foot “trophy mansion| has yo-yoed on and off the market and now after being listed as a “BANKRUPTCY SALE!! Excellent Value – Price Reduced to Sell!!” has just reappeared for ‘just’ £9.2 million.

     

    Described by Curbed New York as having “truly lovely architectural details” and an oval-shaped dining room that has been frequented by “heads of states and foreign dignitaries from all over the world,” the red brick and limestone property has 10 bedrooms and 9 bathrooms. Additionally, it includes 1,500 square foot of outdoor space in the form of two private terraces, a chef’s kitchen, a wine cellar, a lift and a banquet hall.

     

    Agents Compass laud 29 Beekman Place as being “designed with grand scale entertaining in mind” and suggest it “appropriate for a private mansion, live/work, a foundation, or an ideal consulate or diplomat residence.” They add: “Do not miss this opportunity to purchase a piece of New York history,” (but unsurprisingly don’t mention any of the infamous murders in the neighbouring buildings).

     

    The Names & Numbers – 29 Beekman Place, Midtown East, Manhattan, New York, NY 10022, United States of America

     

    April 2020 – Relisted for £9.22 million ($11.45 million, €10.58 million or درهم42.05 million) through Compass as a “bankruptcy sale.”

     

    September 2019 – Relisted for £11.7 million ($14.5 million, €13.4 million or درهم53.3 million) through Compass.

     

    October 2017 – Relisted for £22.5 million ($28 million, €25.9 million or درهم102.8 million) through Sotheby’s International Realty.

     

    January 2016 – Relisted for £27.4 million ($34 million, €31.4 million or درهم124.9 million).

     

    May 2015 – Relisted for £30.2 million ($37.5 million, €34.7 million or درهم137.7 million) through Douglas Elliman.

     

    February 2014 – Listed for £40.2 million ($49.9 million, €46.2 million or درهم183.3 million) through Brown Harris Stevens.

     

    Mid 1970s – Sold to Princess Ashraf Pahlavi (1919 – 2016), the twin sister of the Shah of Iran.

     

    1940s – After Mr and Mrs Paley divorced, the house was first rented to and then bought by the philanthropist Mary Woodward Lasker (1900 – 1994). She lived there with her second husband, advertising executive Albert Lasker (1940 – 1952), and remained there after his death until circa 1975.

     

    1934 – Built for the “notorious womaniser” and first CEO of Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), William S. Paley (1901 – 1990) and his first wife Dorothy Hart Hearst (ex-wife of John Randolph Hearst).

     

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    A Borderline Bonfire Bargain – 77% off 29 Beekman Place, NYC – Manhattan mansion listed for 77% less than in 2014 in “bankruptcy sale;” £9.22 million ($11.45 million) for 29 Beekman Place, Midtown East, Manhattan, New York, NY 10022, United States of America through Compass in 2020 down from £40.2 million ($49.9 million) in 2014. Built in 1934 for CBS chief executive William S. Paley. Home to Albert and Mary Lasker and Princess Ashraf Pahlavi. Murders of Nancy Titterton, Dr Fritz Gebhardt and Thomas Gilbert, Sr.
    A Borderline Bonfire Bargain – 77% off 29 Beekman Place, NYC – Manhattan mansion listed for 77% less than in 2014 in “bankruptcy sale;” £9.22 million ($11.45 million) for 29 Beekman Place, Midtown East, Manhattan, New York, NY 10022, United States of America through Compass in 2020 down from £40.2 million ($49.9 million) in 2014. Built in 1934 for CBS chief executive William S. Paley. Home to Albert and Mary Lasker and Princess Ashraf Pahlavi. Murders of Nancy Titterton, Dr Fritz Gebhardt and Thomas Gilbert, Sr.
    A Borderline Bonfire Bargain – 77% off 29 Beekman Place, NYC – Manhattan mansion listed for 77% less than in 2014 in “bankruptcy sale;” £9.22 million ($11.45 million) for 29 Beekman Place, Midtown East, Manhattan, New York, NY 10022, United States of America through Compass in 2020 down from £40.2 million ($49.9 million) in 2014. Built in 1934 for CBS chief executive William S. Paley. Home to Albert and Mary Lasker and Princess Ashraf Pahlavi. Murders of Nancy Titterton, Dr Fritz Gebhardt and Thomas Gilbert, Sr.
    A Borderline Bonfire Bargain – 77% off 29 Beekman Place, NYC – Manhattan mansion listed for 77% less than in 2014 in “bankruptcy sale;” £9.22 million ($11.45 million) for 29 Beekman Place, Midtown East, Manhattan, New York, NY 10022, United States of America through Compass in 2020 down from £40.2 million ($49.9 million) in 2014. Built in 1934 for CBS chief executive William S. Paley. Home to Albert and Mary Lasker and Princess Ashraf Pahlavi. Murders of Nancy Titterton, Dr Fritz Gebhardt and Thomas Gilbert, Sr.
    A Borderline Bonfire Bargain – 77% off 29 Beekman Place, NYC – Manhattan mansion listed for 77% less than in 2014 in “bankruptcy sale;” £9.22 million ($11.45 million) for 29 Beekman Place, Midtown East, Manhattan, New York, NY 10022, United States of America through Compass in 2020 down from £40.2 million ($49.9 million) in 2014. Built in 1934 for CBS chief executive William S. Paley. Home to Albert and Mary Lasker and Princess Ashraf Pahlavi. Murders of Nancy Titterton, Dr Fritz Gebhardt and Thomas Gilbert, Sr.
    A Borderline Bonfire Bargain – 77% off 29 Beekman Place, NYC – Manhattan mansion listed for 77% less than in 2014 in “bankruptcy sale;” £9.22 million ($11.45 million) for 29 Beekman Place, Midtown East, Manhattan, New York, NY 10022, United States of America through Compass in 2020 down from £40.2 million ($49.9 million) in 2014. Built in 1934 for CBS chief executive William S. Paley. Home to Albert and Mary Lasker and Princess Ashraf Pahlavi. Murders of Nancy Titterton, Dr Fritz Gebhardt and Thomas Gilbert, Sr.
    A Borderline Bonfire Bargain – 77% off 29 Beekman Place, NYC – Manhattan mansion listed for 77% less than in 2014 in “bankruptcy sale;” £9.22 million ($11.45 million) for 29 Beekman Place, Midtown East, Manhattan, New York, NY 10022, United States of America through Compass in 2020 down from £40.2 million ($49.9 million) in 2014. Built in 1934 for CBS chief executive William S. Paley. Home to Albert and Mary Lasker and Princess Ashraf Pahlavi. Murders of Nancy Titterton, Dr Fritz Gebhardt and Thomas Gilbert, Sr.
    A Borderline Bonfire Bargain – 77% off 29 Beekman Place, NYC – Manhattan mansion listed for 77% less than in 2014 in “bankruptcy sale;” £9.22 million ($11.45 million) for 29 Beekman Place, Midtown East, Manhattan, New York, NY 10022, United States of America through Compass in 2020 down from £40.2 million ($49.9 million) in 2014. Built in 1934 for CBS chief executive William S. Paley. Home to Albert and Mary Lasker and Princess Ashraf Pahlavi. Murders of Nancy Titterton, Dr Fritz Gebhardt and Thomas Gilbert, Sr.
    A Borderline Bonfire Bargain – 77% off 29 Beekman Place, NYC – Manhattan mansion listed for 77% less than in 2014 in “bankruptcy sale;” £9.22 million ($11.45 million) for 29 Beekman Place, Midtown East, Manhattan, New York, NY 10022, United States of America through Compass in 2020 down from £40.2 million ($49.9 million) in 2014. Built in 1934 for CBS chief executive William S. Paley. Home to Albert and Mary Lasker and Princess Ashraf Pahlavi. Murders of Nancy Titterton, Dr Fritz Gebhardt and Thomas Gilbert, Sr.
    A Borderline Bonfire Bargain – 77% off 29 Beekman Place, NYC – Manhattan mansion listed for 77% less than in 2014 in “bankruptcy sale;” £9.22 million ($11.45 million) for 29 Beekman Place, Midtown East, Manhattan, New York, NY 10022, United States of America through Compass in 2020 down from £40.2 million ($49.9 million) in 2014. Built in 1934 for CBS chief executive William S. Paley. Home to Albert and Mary Lasker and Princess Ashraf Pahlavi. Murders of Nancy Titterton, Dr Fritz Gebhardt and Thomas Gilbert, Sr.
    A Borderline Bonfire Bargain – 77% off 29 Beekman Place, NYC – Manhattan mansion listed for 77% less than in 2014 in “bankruptcy sale;” £9.22 million ($11.45 million) for 29 Beekman Place, Midtown East, Manhattan, New York, NY 10022, United States of America through Compass in 2020 down from £40.2 million ($49.9 million) in 2014. Built in 1934 for CBS chief executive William S. Paley. Home to Albert and Mary Lasker and Princess Ashraf Pahlavi. Murders of Nancy Titterton, Dr Fritz Gebhardt and Thomas Gilbert, Sr.
    A Borderline Bonfire Bargain – 77% off 29 Beekman Place, NYC – Manhattan mansion listed for 77% less than in 2014 in “bankruptcy sale;” £9.22 million ($11.45 million) for 29 Beekman Place, Midtown East, Manhattan, New York, NY 10022, United States of America through Compass in 2020 down from £40.2 million ($49.9 million) in 2014. Built in 1934 for CBS chief executive William S. Paley. Home to Albert and Mary Lasker and Princess Ashraf Pahlavi. Murders of Nancy Titterton, Dr Fritz Gebhardt and Thomas Gilbert, Sr.
    A Borderline Bonfire Bargain – 77% off 29 Beekman Place, NYC – Manhattan mansion listed for 77% less than in 2014 in “bankruptcy sale;” £9.22 million ($11.45 million) for 29 Beekman Place, Midtown East, Manhattan, New York, NY 10022, United States of America through Compass in 2020 down from £40.2 million ($49.9 million) in 2014. Built in 1934 for CBS chief executive William S. Paley. Home to Albert and Mary Lasker and Princess Ashraf Pahlavi. Murders of Nancy Titterton, Dr Fritz Gebhardt and Thomas Gilbert, Sr.