Tag: businessman

Extravagance Knows No Bounds – £36m Mansion Previously Owned By Disgraced Tycoons Alan Bond And Conrad Black Again For Sale

Matthew Steeples takes a look at a £36 million Kensington mansion formerly owned by disgraced business tycoons Alan Bond and Lord Black; its former chatelaine was known for stating “I have an extravagance that know no bounds”

Sir Winston Churchill’s daughter Mary Soames once described the buccaneering businessman and media tycoon Lord Black of Crossharbour as “London’s biggest bore unhung” whilst his wife, Lady Black – better known as the author and journalist Barbara Amiel – was suggested to be just a “rich bitch” by Sarah Sands in a “case for the defence” article in the Independent in October 2006.

“Poster boy for the 80s” turned fraudster and jailbird Alan Bond (1938 – 2015) was an English-Australian businessman equally Marmite-like in being liked or loathed and now a Kensington mansion owned for a time by both subsequently disgraced businessmen is once again for sale.

14 Cottesmore Gardens, formerly known as 12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens, was purchased by Alan Bond’s Satellite Group for £7 million in the 1980s and sold by administrators of that business to Conrad Black and his wife for the knockdown sum of just £3.5 million in 1992.

Plain old Mr and Mrs Black (as they then were) lavished further millions – some of which came from the company Hollinger International, Inc., which ultimately resulted in their downfall – on the double fronted 19^th century mansion and used it for entertaining on a lavish scale. Guests, including the likes of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, Joan Collins, Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Goldsmith, James Hanson, Arnold Weinstock, Jacob Rothschild, Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair, were said to flock to the parties they gave there, but in 2005 these gatherings of upto 400 people at a time came to an almighty end.

Forced to sell at a bargain basement price of just £13.1 million on an ask of £17.5 million as the Canadian born billionaire faced jail time in America, Lord and Lady Black’s tenure was over and the residence saw its “arriviste torch” passed to Juan and Adriana Villalonga, a couple described as “a Mexican telecom czar and his beauty-queen wife.” Of what came next, The Globe And Mail’s Paul Waldie pointedly penned in February 2007: “[They] quickly erased many of the features that the Blacks prized.”

Once again for sale as of April 2023, the value of 14 Cottesmore Gardens has again been deemed to have substantially risen. Knight Frank offer the 12,310 square foot, five-storey residence at a punchy price of £36 million and laud it as “imposing” and “presented in good order throughout.” They add that a “pre-planning consultation” has found that further accommodation could be added that would take the internal space to more than 15,000 square feet; business barons with deep pockets only need apply.

Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party. Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples.

Pictured Top – 54-foot wide 14 Cottesmore Gardens is described by selling agents Knight Frank as “offering lateral living so often requested but so hard to find in central London.” They neglect to mention that with its hedges cut back to the minimum, the place actually looks extremely forlorn.

Flamboyant Lord and Lady Black dressed as Cardinal Richelieu and Marie Antoinette for a party at Kensington Palace in 2000. For a time, the couple employed 17 butlers (if Tom Bower is to be believed) and had two private jets and homes – aside from the 19th Cottesmore Gardens mansion – in New York, Palm Beach and Toronto. “Guests packed into their parties at Cottesmore Gardens,” Bower remarked in his 2006 book the couple, adding: “Amiel was a big spender… Under the control of senior butler Andrew Lightwood, second butler Peter Wilson and a succession of third butlers, Amiel’s life in Kensington had become what her constantly changing staff called ‘bizarre.’ Each recruit was taken by Lightwood on an introductory tour of the house, ending on the roof. ‘Make sure the landing lights are on at all times,’ instructed Lightwood solemnly, ‘because Madame takes off from here on her broomstick looking for cats. She needs the lights to guide her return.’ His face would crack into a smile. ‘Most important, take care that she never sees you. She hates seeing any of us.’ Amiel’s eccentricity demanded that her staff hid whenever she approached, diving into cupboards if necessary, and never entered her quarters when she was present. Every day, all the bed linen was changed and subjected to ‘the penny test.’ A coin was dropped onto the sheets. If it failed to bounce they were not drawn sufficiently tight. Every cushion was arranged to a precise pre-ordained position, and each towel placed exactly as Amiel had predetermined. ‘Andrew!’ she screamed down the telephone on one memorable occasion, ‘the towels are in the wrong place!’ Lightwood, as Amiel knew, was in New York, but he was expected to telephone the staff in the house in London to rectify the error. ‘You f**king pillock!’ she yelled at another member of staff for reading her ‘Daily Mail’ before it was delivered to her.”

Barbara Amiel Black (or ‘Lady Black’ as she prefers to be known) in her drawing room at Cottesmore Gardens (pictured). Of her, Sarah Sands on Lord and Lady Black in the ‘Independent’ in October 2006 opined: “Conrad and Barbara in their monstrous, glamorous way, knew how to throw parties. The talk was of geo-politics and hemlines. Nowadays, we scorn their extravagance and doubt the source of their wealth with prune-faced hindsight. Meanwhile, everyone is sucking up to Russians…. Barbara would disingenuously begin her midnight calls to me by saying in her low, breathy voice: ‘I hope I am not disturbing you.’ She would then offer little glimpses of her own home life. I remember her mentioning that Conrad Black was upstairs playing with his fleet of toy gun ships in the bath… I remember her examining an exhibition of doll’s houses at the Chelsea Flower Show and sighing how restful it would be to live in this cosy little home. How she envied people in small houses. The burden of wealth was one of her more dangerous fantasies. At one of her Gatsby-style parties in Kensington, she flinched at the elaborate canapés on offer: ‘Really, all I want is a sausage,’ she said, piteously. Then, she ran a hand down her inconceivably expensive dress and whispered: ‘I hate these parties, I am so shy.’ Later, I was invited to her boudoir, where she lay on cushion surrounded by her women friends. She was Kensington’s Cleopatra, surrounded by maidens such as the designer and Forte daughter Olga Polizzi, the political thinker Tessa Keswick and the writer Miriam Gross.”

The very same drawing room at 14 Cottesmore Gardens today. The décor is now somewhat more modern and less ‘classical country house-ified.’ It’s certainly more Soho Farmhouse than Alberto Pinto in style; it is currently a space that the former Meghan Markle would feel more at home than say, perhaps, the likes of Lord and Lady Black’s chum Ghislaine Maxwell and her fellow noxious nonce Ponzi scheming paedophile boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein. Mr Pinto was responsible, it should be noted, for the designs of most of Epstein’s residences.

The front elevation of 12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens during the era it was owned by Lord and Lady Black.

Multiple entries for Lord and Lady Black during the time they owned 14 Cottesmore Gardens appeared in the ‘Little Black Book’ address book often attributed as being that of the friends and associates of Jeffrey Epstein, but that featured more of the contacts of Ghislaine Maxwell in fact. In October 2020, Barbara Amiel took revenge on the pension pot plunderer’s padeophile sex trafficker daughter by featuring her in her “score-settling” memoir ‘Friends & Enemies: A Life in Vogue, Prison, & Park Avenue.” Maxwell had “dumped” Lady Black when Lord Black was being investigated for fraud. She wrote of their last meeting: “We were friends – so putting on my ‘So good to see you’ face, I headed for her. She bolted. Turned that sharp tight little turn when you really want to get away. And that was it.”

Of the clear lover of plastic surgery Lady Black, in October 2020, Sarah Sands remarked in ‘The Mail on Sunday’: “She had a bohemian, almost masculine, view of opportunistic sex. She describes, for instance, accompanying an early love in his white Triumph sports car ‘in which once or twice I had performed fellatio to the fascination of passing truck drivers, all for fun.’”

After getting out of the clink in 2012, Lord and Lady Black decided to go back on the ‘razzle-dazzle’ and posed for photographers before heading back to London to party with friends. In May 2019, the rambunctious peer arrogantly announced he’d be returning to the House of Lords after President Donald Trump pardoned and praised him. Commenting, of this pardon, Lord Black declared: “I’m not bitter… Officially in the United States, I’ve never been charged and I won in the end. It was a war and there are casualties in wars. I lost the time, I lost a lot of money, but as you can see my standards of living isn’t bad… The truth is, these, last 15 years, I haven’t been as interested in British politics as I was before – in the Thatcher years. It could be quite interesting again, in fact it is as of right now – it’s very interesting… It’s my good fortune that at a time when it is feasible, it happens – by happy coincidence – that it is a time of great fermentation in British public affairs.” Surprisingly, he doesn’t seem to have turned up on occasions since.

The previous owner of 14 Cottesmore Gardens, Alan Bond (1938 – 2015), will forever be remembered as “Australia’s most notorious corporate criminal.” Born in Hammersmith, London, Bond’s first crime occurred when he was charged with theft aged 14 in Fremantle in Australia and whilst he is remembered for bankrolling the successful challenge for the 1983 America’s Cup, it is for causing the then biggest corporate collapse in Australian history that he will be go down in history.

Former Miss Mexico Adriana Abascal López-Cisneros (at the time Adriana Villalonga) bought the house in 2005. She divorced the Spanish businessman Juan Villalonga in 2009 and married the French businessman Emmanuel Schreder in Ibiza in June 2013. In August 2014, the magazine ‘Quién’ featured the model and television presenter on its cover and at that time she described her new husband as “the love of my life.”

Madrid born Juan Villalonga became the joint owner of 14 Cottesmore Gardens with his then wife Adriana Abascal – the couple were married between 2000 and 2009 – in 2005. He is listed on Companies House as being a director of the now dissolved Medikidz Foundation at the address between August 2009 and November 2013. Married since 2011 to a photographer named Vanessa Von Zitewitz, Mr Villalonga was a partner at McKinsey & Company in the 1980s, CEO for Credit Suisse First Boston and Bankers Trust in Spain in the early 1990s and CEO of Telefónica from 1996 to 2000. He was named as one of the best performing chief executive officers in the world by ‘Harvard Business Review’ in 2010 and is also linked to addresses in Monaco.

The Names & Numbers – 14 Cottesmore Gardens (formerly known as ’12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens’), Kensington, London, W8 5PR, United Kingdom

April 2023 – Offered for sale for £36 million ($44.4 million, €40.9 million or درهم163.2 million) through Knight Frank. Valued on Homipi at an upper sum of £28.558 million ($35.250 million, €32.440 million or درهم129.456 million).

2009 – Mr and Mrs Villalonga divorce and subsequently Adriana Abascal married Emmanuel Schreder, a French businessman, in Ibiza in June 2013.

2005 – Sold by Lord and Lady Black for £13.1 million ($16.2 million, €14.9 million or درهم59.4 million) to Spanish businessman Juan Villalonga Navarro and Mexican model, Miss Mexico winner and television presenter Adriana Abascal López-Cisneros Villalonga.

October 2004 – Placed for sale for £17.5 million ($21.6 million, €19.9 million or درهم79.3 million) according to NZ Herald.

January 2004 – Valued at £14 million ($17.3 million, €15.9 million or درهم63.5 million) according to The Globe And Mail. At the time, the “mansion” in “the upscale Kensington neighbourhood” was described as having “10 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms and a swimming pool.”

Featured also in The Guardian in an article by Chris Tryhorn. Quoting Lord Black, he shared: “At a certain price, anything is for sale. [It has] been shown to people in the not-too-distant-past.”

Going further, Tryhorn added: “Artwork from the 18^th and 19^th centuries lines the walls, and there is plenty of storage space for the extensive wardrobe and shoe collection of Lord Black’s wife, Barbara Amiel, who famously declared once that her ‘extravagence knows no bounds.’ … It was originally two homes and one of the two original front doors is now a ‘deliveries’ entrance. He has used it in the past to host dinners with butler and maid service that was part-paid by Hollinger.”

Also in 2004, in a profile in The Spectator, Peter Oborne wrote:

“Every year the Blacks threw two parties, one at Christmas and one summer event, at their double-fronted 11-bedroom mansion in Cottesmore Gardens. Everybody who mattered at the time went: Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Goldsmith, James Hanson, Arnold Weinstock, Jacob Rothschild, royalty, the playwright Tom Stoppard.”

“Some of these, injudiciously as it turned out, agreed to join the main Hollinger board. The luckier ones – Peter Carrington, Robert Salisbury – got away with being made directors of The Telegraph. As the Tories faded out, Labour ministers started to arrive, the indefatigable Peter Mandelson, David Blunkett and other ministers eager to ingratiate themselves with the Tory press. Prince and Princess Michael of Kent were assiduous in attendance. In London, the Nineties belonged to the Blacks. They were London’s most glamorous power couple.”

“There had been a time when both Blacks had kept their feet on the ground. This ceased to be the case. One evening Barbara Black rang Charles Moore panic-stricken from her Kensington home. There had been a last-minute drop-out from one of the famous Black dinner parties. ‘I’m short of a woman,’ she told Moore. Moore surveyed the newsroom. His gaze alighted on the journalist Eleanor Mills, by chance the stepdaughter of the Cabinet minister Tessa Jowell.”

“An hour later, hastily groomed, made-up and brushed, Mills was sipping pre-dinner drinks in Cottesmore Gardens. Then disaster struck. A male guest, Max Fisher, dropped out. Mills was approached by Conrad Black. ‘Finish your drink and skedaddle,’ he told her. Barbara Black then told her to go to the kitchen and out through the servants’ door, where the driver would pick her up and take her home.”

2001 – Conrad Black is elevated to a life peerage in the United Kingdom at the suggestion of Tony Blair. He sat on the Conservative benches in the House of Lords until 2007 as The Right Honourable The Lord Black of Crossharbour KCSG, but took a “leave of absence” between 2012 and 2019.

28^th May 1996 – The Royal Borough of Kensington And Chelsea ordered that 12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens “shall be known and described” simply instead as 14 Cottesmore Gardens.

Mid 1990s – The Blacks set about renovating 12 and 14 Cottesmore Gardens with the help of J. E. Evans Associates. Of the work in October 2006, The Sunday Times shared a segment of Tom Bower’s 2006 hatchet job Conrad and Lady Black that read: “Amiel vowed to create a palace that would attract celebrity worshipers of a power couple. Part of the first floor was to be removed to create a huge ground floor reception area.”

1992 – 12 and 14 Cottesmore Gardens sold by the administrators of the affairs of Alan Bond through estate agents Savills to media tycoon Conrad Black and his Watford born journalist wife Barbara Amiel Black for “well under the asking price” for a sum of £3.5 million ($4.3 million, €4 million or درهم15.9 million).

Mr Bond had been granted mortgages valued at £16.2 million ($20 million, €18.4 million or درهم73.5 million) on the property by Bell Satellite Services on the property along with two others at 4 and 16 Belgrave Mews in London, SW1 previously according to a report published by Financial Review in March 1990.

1991 – Rented to an American businessman for £6,000 per week ($7,400, €6,800 or درهم27,200 per week).

1990 – Placed in the hands of administrators of Mr Bond’s and placed for sale through Savills for a bargain basement sum of £3.8 million ($4.7 million, €4.3 million or درهم17.2 million) according to Financial Review.

1980s – Sold to Alan Bond’s Bell Satellite Group for £7 million ($8.6 million, €8 million or درهم31.7 million).

Circa 1905 – Walter Tapper is said to have “designed a library with handsome Arts and Crafts plasterwork (now removed) at the rear of the building.”

1903 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens registered as the home of a Mrs Benson according to the Muster Roll of Angus: South African War, 1899 – 1902.

1869 – In their current marketing blurb, Knight Frank suggest: “There has been a house on the site of 12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens since at least 1869. The current house has been altered, extended and most notably joined over the subsequent century and a half. With the local planning department strongly opposed to further amalgamation of homes, opportunities to acquire a house of this width will be rarer still in the future.”

1850s to 1860s – Built “under the direction of David Howell, of Serjeants Inn, Fleet Street.” Mr Howell was described in 1853 as an “articled clerk to a solicitor, lately carrying on business as a solicitor.” The architecture was lauded as: “Designed in a bold classical manner, with rather fleshy consoles and modillions… and bands of Vitruvian scroll between the bases of the ground-floor windows.”

More photographs of the £36 million mansion…

An entrance hall where power and privilege have most certainly mingled previously.

The 54-foot wide drawing is lauded by selling realtors Knight Frank as “arguably the best room in the house” and “double aspect.” They add: “[It has] six windows overlooking the street and additional views over the private garden to the rear.”

The columns where Barbara Amiel Black once posed for photographs remain, but the subsequent owners eliminated much of the 1990s ‘brash’ that had been installed by a Watford born woman whose excess clearly offended so many.

This dining room, where Conrad Black hosted presidents and prime ministers, is now somewhat diminished. The table for eight looks completely out of place and a future owner would do well to install something a little grander.

A double height entertaining space was installed at the insistence of the loftier-than-lofty Lady Black in the 1990s and it remains today. However, it is now currently being used for more casual affairs such as Netflix viewing rather than being the scene of something that you’d more likely find in the ‘House of Cards’ in fact.

A new owner might reinstate the grandeur of the past; sadly, however, this seems unlikely and the purchaser is more likely to be a footballer or Internet tycoon than a super-connected business tycoon.

This currently very dark and very depressing study would most certainly not appeal to the very clearly very, very bright yet very, very pompous The Right Honourable The Lord Black of Crossharbour KCSG – a man who is said to count Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte as “his military heroes.” Of him in July 1997, Mark Honigsbaum in the ‘Independent’ remarked: “Although Black’s grandfather had briefly been a business partner of Harold Harmsworth, the original Viscount Rothermere, it was from his father, George Montegu Black Jr, that Black learned the art of corporate warfare, the importance of historical perspective and that gambling provides a disappointing rate of return compared to the Dow Jones index… The young Conrad was precocious. At the age of eight he sank his life savings of $60 into a single share of General Motors. He also became obsessed with Napoleon, and would astound his father’s friends by reeling off details of campaigns. Another story has him washing dollar bills and hanging them out to dry on a line outside his father’s home in Toronto. The last is apocryphal – Black says he slipped in the mud and was cleaning his change – but the image of the young capitalist, wise beyond his years, is accurate. His childhood tutor, the historian Laurier LaPierre, once asked Black why he always seemed to have the air of someone waiting for something to happen… A few years ago, for instance, the rumour went round Fleet Street that Black had bought Napoleon’s preserved penis at an auction. Black denied it, but many remain convinced that Bonaparte’s body part sits in Black’s collection of military curios… Black is no philanderer and is devoted to his second wife, the former ‘Sunday Times’ columnist Barbara Amiel. They are said to be intellectual soul mates and the parties at their four-storey mansion in Kensington are famous for bringing together a cross-section of the great and good.”

One could not imagine the likes of the late great Baroness Thatcher, for example, liking the idea of sitting in this extremely depressing and dark waiting area. A new owner would do well to obliterate a décor scheme that could have only been favoured by a completely colour blind banker.

A room currently described as a ‘cinema room’ measures 28’6” by 21’6” and is situated at the rear of the house. One can imagine Conrad Black having sat here for hour upon hour watching historical dramas about Napoleon with the likes of chums such as the acclaimed historian Andrew Roberts, the gambling tycoon John Aspinall and the politician and diarist Alan Clark, but a new owner will be more likely next showing episodes of ‘Succession’ – based on ‘The Telegraph’ tycoon’s rival Rupert Murdoch – than viewing historical works one most definitely suspects.

Dining whilst the staff cook would NEVER have been on the agenda in the era that pomposity reigned whilst Lady Black was chatelaine of 14 Cottesmore Gardens.

A 2,000 square foot entire floor fit for a tycoon… The master bedroom suite of the house takes up the entirety of the second floor of the building. It incorporates not only the principal bedroom, but also a “his” dressing room and a “her” dressing room as well as a sitting area, a bathroom, a shower room and storage rooms. It has direct lift access and is bigger than the average Brit’s entire house.

A dressing room in the house where Barbara Black opened up to ‘Vogue’ and displayed “closets overflowing with dazzling evening gowns, designer handbags and 100 pairs of Manolo Blahnik shoes. ‘I have an extravagance that knows no bounds,’ she famously declared. Unfortunately for Lady Black, the article was closely perused at investment company Tweedy, Browne, a Hollinger International shareholder.”

This playroom certainly did not exist in the era that Lord and Lady Black owned the property. It would be more likely crammed with books or stuffed with Manolo Blahnik shoes than toys from Toys ‘R Us. A new owner may likely reinstate it as an additional bedroom or office or games room perhaps.

The pool room measures 43’9” by 26’9” and is no doubt where Lady Black spent many an hour relaxing.

The garden to the rear was where Lord and Lady Black hosted their annual summer party (with guests “spilling” into their drawing room also). In surprisingly Tardis-like fashion, the duo were able to supposedly squeeze in upto 400 guests at such occasions. Amongst those said to have enjoyed hospitality there were Joan Collins and of such, magazine publisher Nicholas Coleridge wrote: “If you get a kick out of milling about with present and former prime ministers, cabinet ministers, minor royals, dukes, editors, vastly rich Americans, distinguished historians, gossip columnists, playboys and lots of pretty ‘it’ girls, then this was the place to be.”

The existing floor plan of the property illustrates the vast scale of the building offered. A buyer, Knight Frank observe, has additional options and “a pre-planning consultation has been carried out with RBKC by leading architects Studio Indigo.” They add: “[It] would completely reconfigure the house adding an additional basement floor and taking the internal space to more than 15,000 square foot. The resulting house would have a 40-foot by 41-foot south-facing rear garden.”

A plan of the site as presented in 1996 when 12 and 14 became known just as 14 Cottesmore Gardens.

April 2, 2023
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 4^th 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, 4^th 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

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, 7^th 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, 6^th 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, 5^th 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, 4^th 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 4^th 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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June 13, 2020
Soiled Sundays

Sunday evening acid-throwing Arthur Collins’ ex-partner Ferne McCann attempts to flog used knickers and bras online whilst posing with their brat, a girl named Sunday

Brentwood born Ferne McCann’s “baby daddy” Arthur Collins caused life-changing injuries to 22 innocent people after arriving at the Mangle E8 nightclub in Dalston, London during a night out on Sunday 16^th April 2017. Stoked up and out of control, this “verminous cretin” hurled acid at clubbers at around 1.45am and then went on the run. This sub-human specimen, whose previous convictions numbered assault and possession of cocaine, deservedly got 20 years in jail, yet many continue to argue that that sentence was far too lenient.

Meanwhile, in the months that followed, McCann proceeded – without a moment’s consideration for Collins’ victims – to name their child, you’d never believe it, ‘Sunday.’ She supposedly spoke with her incarcerated ex-scaffolder lover via a phone illegally delivered to his prison cell and liked photographs on Instagram calling for this turd-like criminal’s release even.

Ferne McCann posing with her since convicted criminal lover Arthur Collins in Dubai.

Now, according to the Mirror, McCann – whom disgustingly thought it appropriate to promote beauty products including lip plumping primer via Instagram on the day Collins was sent down in December 2017 – has found a new niche. This slovenly scrubber has taken to flogging used knickers and bras via a website named Depop.com.

Offered at prices as low as £8 for a black bikini top with “a few crystals missing,” McCann plainly is a woman who’ll attempt to sell not only her soiled goods: This self-declared “very well-known celebrity” lost an application relating to a “range of toilet preparations” in June 2019. She was ordered to pay £2,400 in costs to a firm named CP Management and now we’re left wondering: “What’ll she get thong next?”

Pictured top: Ferne McCann and her child, Sunday. On Depop.com this money grabbing wench sold the blue dress pictured for £40. She’s unsurprisingly not had as much luck in attempting to hawk her second-hand undergarments.

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May 3, 2020
Berating Branson

As a petition to strip Sir Richard Branson of his knighthood reaches 27,000 signatories, a doctor calls out this Beelzebub-like businessman’s meanness

Sir Richard Branson, undoubtedly one of the most deserving figures of hate of the coronavirus pandemic, has rightly been panned on the left and panned on the right. With both Tory and Labour politicians after him and his key backer, Delta, refusing to inject fresh cash into his crisis-hit airline, this cretinous tax exile has truly hit the buffers and is quite rightly fast running out of friends and allies.

On Tuesday in the Guardian, the columnist Marina Hyde condemned Branson’s offer of Necker Island as security for a £500 million bailout from the British government as “the most WTF-tinged piece of collateral action since that late-1980s moment when Australian entrepreneur Alan Bond bought Van Gogh’s Irises at Sotheby’s, using a loan from Sotheby’s, for which the painting itself was collateral.” She was spot on about this and in stating: “I’d encourage you to speculate on how soon it will be before Richard requests UK or US bailout money for his Virgin Galactic enterprise, where space travel has been ‘set to be a reality next year’ for a good 12 years now,” this journalist hits the nail on the head. Branson can certainly be termed an immensely clever (if deviant) stage manager and anything but a one-trick pony, but what lies beneath his mirage is nothing but a house of sand propped up by a bag of bilge.

In response to the feature, one Nicholas Fox of Virgin Group wrote to the Guardian on Saturday. His missive pathetically bleated about being “saddened” by Hyde’s suggestions, but as a counterpoint, one Dr Richard O’Brien, who had travelled on one of Branson’s aircraft, provided an entirely different take. The good doctor remarked:

SIR – Is Marina Hyde being a little harsh on Richard Branson? On a Virgin flight home from Los Angeles several years ago I answered the call for a doctor (the third call, actually, as hardened medics wait for somebody more gung-ho to respond) and saved the life of a businessman who had swooned during his in-flight massage (no, please, it was nothing).

The crew were so relieved when I spared them the expensive inconvenience of an unscheduled landing that they gave me a free orange juice as they ushered me past the empty business seats and back to steerage. It was followed up by a letter of gratitude and a promise of 10% off my next trip. I later found out that anybody could get 10% off by booking online.

So don’t tell me Branson seems to feel entitled to the free benefit of others’ generosity – I already know.

Dr Richard O’Brien

Highbridge, Somerset

Elsewhere, an online petition on Change.org to strip Branson of his knighthood continues to garner support. Justifying it someone named ‘Duna Stays Mad’ calls the billionaire businessman a “disgrace to his country” and a “traitor” and suggests he is “milking the system.” Today, we urge our readers to join the 27,000 who have already signed it by clicking here.

Pictured top: Sir Richard Branson getting his filthy mitts into a blonde.

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April 25, 2020
Lawrence Stroll (born Lawrence Strulovitch)

Montreal born “archetypal billionaire,” “fashion mogul” and “Ferrari fanatic” Lawrence Stroll arranged £536 million of funding to save Aston Martin, much of which came from his own very, very deep coffers, in early 2020. Without him, the firm that has manufactured James Bond’s favourite motorcar since 1913 would likely have gone bust for the eighth time after a disastrous flotation “that left the city shaken, not stirred” in 2019. According to Bloomberg, he’s famous for “[taking] over a brand that’s either niche, or in trouble, or both, and beef it up for half a dozen years. Then exit with a tidy profit,” but given his personal interest in both vintage and F1 cars (he led the consortium that bought the Force India F1 team in 2018) this “petrolhead” may allow passion to rule profit for once. Father of two Stroll is based in Geneva and has homes in London, New York, Quebec and on Mustique. He counts Michael Douglas and Sarah, Duchess of York amongst his friends and once remarked of people complaining about his cars and helicopters: “I can appreciate that some people are opposed to noise. And I can understand their desire for tranquillity, in which case they should not move in next to racetracks, airports or ski hills.”

April 21, 2020
Not Such Divine Intervention

Empty Gothic church in Kelso, Scotland for sale for just £130,000; it was home until 2006 to the conspiracy theorist Dean Warwick – who collapsed and died on stage at a UFO conference in Blackpool mid speech

“Alternative energy pioneer” Dean Warwick (1944 – 2006) believed 9/11 was a “farce.” This controversial crackpot claimed he had been trained in the military to bring down the Twin Towers using satellite waves in the mid-1960s and that he also categorically knew exactly who JFK’s murderer was.

Whilst “going on and on and on” at Probe International’s paranormal conference in Blackpool, Lancashire on 7^th October 2006 about these matters and “children having their skin eaten whilst they were still alive in the New Forest” and about how he knew who the “real” killers of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were also, Warwick supposedly announced: “Bear with me for a moment.” He then “leaned with his left elbow on a nearby table with his right arm across his body, and then fell flat on his face. Shortly afterwards he was pronounced dead.” Fellow conspiracy cranks (including David Icke) later claimed: “This was an Intelligence agency ‘hit’ using an ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) weapon,” but this was never ultimately proven true.

Warwick had, for about twenty years, lived in the heart of the national hunt racecourse town of Kelso in the Scottish Borders. Here, along with his actress wife Jean, he occupied in a Gothic church and now that building, North Trinity Church is once again for sale.

After Dean Warwick collapsed on stage in Blackpool, Lancashire on 7th October 2006, one fellow conspiracy theorist present observed: “When Dean collapsed on the floor a woman witnessed a man with dark hair slip out of the hall. She followed this man who then proceeded to walk down the stairs whistling merrily to himself, get into a car and make a phone call. He was then seen laughing down the phone to whoever he was speaking to. Who walks out of a hall whistling happily to themselves and then starts laughing down the phone after a man has just collapsed and stopped breathing on stage?”

Bulgarian businessman Kirk Kirchev paid £80,000 for North Trinity Church, Kelso in November 2018 and intended to use £35,000 of his mother’s savings to restore the building.

Recorded as having changed hands in August 2014 for the sum of £45,000, the 6,877 square foot building was again sold in November 2018 for about £80,000 to a Bulgarian businessman named Kirk Kirchev. Of his purchase, in December 2019 talking to Borders TV, the camping tent manufacturer turned face mask retailer remarked:

“I saw the church online and thought this is amazing… It was very cheap, nobody wanted to touch it, the windows were boarded up… When I got in, it was dark, scary with pigeons circling in the main hall, but I could see that it had the soul, the spirit, the sort of magic, that, that bought me.”

“I’ve done 90% of the work I needed, I’ve made it usable. It’s still retaining its derelict and magical look… People think I’m crazy: It’s a given, but I think this place needs someone crazy to take it on because otherwise it will simply fall apart.”

“[When it’s finished” I hope it’ll be a great venue and the focal point of the town. It has a lot of potential as a gathering place for people. I am kind of surprised why people don’t see this because it’s right in the middle of town, it’s got car parks all around, it’s great for a venue and all it needs is a little bit. I think people like the character and all it needs is to be made safe and legal and certified and all that.”

Standing on a site extending to 0.4 acres, Mr Kirchev plainly has decided not to proceed further with his project to find another use for this former religious building. North Trinity Church is now on the market for £130,000 through agents Ballantynes and could be used for residential or commercial purposes. No doubt, however, local residents very much hope another Dean Warwick type doesn’t turn up with yet another conspiracy theory; that, indeed, would be even worse than the shameful local councillors who proposed pulling down this beautiful Category B listed building last November.

The Names & Numbers – North Trinity Church, East Bowmont Street, Kelso, Roxboroughshire, Scotland, TD5 7JH, United Kingdom

April 2020 – For sale for £130,000 ($163,000, €150,000 or درهم597,000) through agents Ballantynes.

November 2019 – Local councillors are reported calling for the demolition of the Category B listed building citing the need for more car parking spaces in Kelso’s town centre.

November 2018 – Sold to Bulgarian born Kirk Kirchev for £80,000 ($100,000, €92,000 or درهم367,000).

December 2017 – Offered for sale as a “development opportunity” for £75,000 ($94,000, €86,000 or درهم344,000) by Edwin Thompson.

August 2014 – Sold for £45,000 ($56,000, €52,000 or درهم207,000).

2011 – A community organisation, The Future Kelso Group, attempted to convert the church into a community hub. These plans did not come to fruition.

2006 onwards – The building “fell into disrepair” after the death of the New Zealand-born conspiracy theorist Dean Warwick during a UFO conference in Blackpool on 7^th October 2006 aged 62. The building had been home to him and his actress wife, Jean, for “over 20 years.”

1885 – 1886 – Built to the designs of architect John Starforth for use as the Kelso United Presbyterian Church on the site of a previous church that was built in 1788. Prominent features are said to “include a four-stage angle buttressed tower over the gable porch to the southern end of the building; lanceted belfry; gabled transepts: and decorative detailing to ridge tiles to main roof. The tower is flanked by two-storey circular stair towers with slated conical roofs, each with side entrances.”

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ1z9QpWFUY

April 19, 2020
A Cut Cost Château

Vast “fairytale” château in France’s Loire Valley for sale for ‘just’ £28 million in spite of having had £80 million spent already on its renovation; it was most famously owned by Madame de Pompadour

In 2017, a Lebanese-born, Monaco-based property developer named Edmond Baysari placed what selling agents Sotheby’s International Realty describes as the “most beautiful and majestic castle in [the] Loire Valley” on the market. It’s so big and so costly to maintain that it remains for sale still today.

Harvard educated Mr Baysari purchased the 102,257 square foot château for about £4.3 million in 1983 from the Parisian glassmakers Saint-Gorbain. It had been used as their company retreat from 1939 and had earlier belonged to Jeanne Antoinette Poisson – the official chief mistress of Louis XV from 1745 to 1751 and a woman better known as ‘Madame de Pompadour’ – in the years prior to her premature death from tuberculosis in 1764 aged just 42.

Providing “regally appointed” accommodation so vast that it is not even described in detail that includes around 50 bedrooms and a wine cellar capable of housing 30,000 bottles amongst other things, Château de Menars – or the ‘Palace Pompadour’ as some have nicknamed it – costs around £800,000 per year to run. In total, some £80 million has been spent renovating it “using the same methods” that the king’s mistress originally employed.

Of why he is selling, the heirless businessman’s lawyer, Jack Anderson, told Reuters in 2017: “[Mr Baysari] realises destiny is going to take him… His goal is to know that it’s in the hands of someone who’s going to continue the beauty of the chateau and maintain it.”

The 104 acres of grounds that surround the château includes vineyards yielding pinot noir grapes, “elegant” geometric grassed lawns and more than a mile of frontage to the River Loire. Classical sculptures and gazebos abound and there is, according to Reuters, “a cobbled courtyard large enough to land a helicopter” also.

During Baysari’s ownership guests at Château de Menars have supposedly numbered Prince Charles, Mikhail Gorbachev, Mick Jagger and President Ronald Reagan. Now, Sotheby’s International Realty point out: “We think this could be perfect for the creation of a luxury hotel complex… Or for the acquisition of an extraordinary and very large private property.”

His “English spoken” [sic] agent, Jean-Pierre Piganiol, seeks £27.6 million and according to Forbes, “several nine-figure offers from Russian and Middle Eastern billionaires looking for a trophy home” have already been turned down.

The Names & Numbers – Château de Menars, Loire Valley, Blois, 41000, France

2015 to date – For sale through Sotheby’s International Realty for sale for £27.6 million ($34.5 million, €31.5 million or درهم126.6 million).

2000 – Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

1983 to 2017 – The sum said to have been spent on restoration of the Château de Menars is said to have been £80.1 million ($100 million, €91.4 million or درهم367.3 million). Annual upkeep costs are said to be £801,000 million ($1 million, €914,000 million or درهم3.7 million).

1983 – Sold to Edmond Baysari for 5 million francs or the equivalent of £4.3 million ($5.4 million, €4.9 million or درهم19.7 million).

1949 – Declared an Historic Monument of France.

1939 – Sold after his death by Mr Allard’s daughters, Blanche Lasserre, Yvonne Arnodin and Jeanne Goirand, to Saint-Gobain, the Parisian glassmakers, for use as their company retreat.

April 1912 – Acquired for 700,050 francs (about £27,400 at that time) by Félix Allard, a “contractor for public works.” He modernised the château and added mains water, hot air heating, gas lighting and electricity and features including a large gallery area.

1760 – Purchased by Madame de Pompadour (1721 – 1764) for 1 million livres (about £75,000 at that time). She “sold some pearl bracelets to meet the first payment” and commissioned the architect Ange-Jacques Gabriel to build two new wings on either side of the two existing pavilions on the property. Sadly for her, she never saw it completed as she died from tuberculosis in 1764.

1728 to 1732 – Stanislas Leszcynski (1677 – 1766), the King of Poland, stayed at Château de Menars whilst in exile as a guest of the Charon family.

1669 – Jean-Jacques Charon (1643 – 1718), son of Jacques Charon, “added two unequal wings to the chateau and considerably enlarged the estate.”

1646 – Commencement of the construction of a castle on the site by one Jacques Charon. It “composed of a main building and two symmetrical pavilions.”

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April 10, 2020
A Corona Cut Church

Converted church in Knightsbridge has its asking price cut by £11 million during the coronavirus lockdown; its price is still 340% higher than it sold for in 2003

In December, we featured the launch to the market of a £55 million property in Walton Street, Knightsbridge. Now, in the midst of London’s coronavirus lockdown, just three months later, that price has been cut by the staggering sum of £11 million.

Yours for £11 million less than in December 2019 – St Saviour’s House, Walton Street, Knightsbridge, London, SW3 1SA.

St Saviour’s House, as it is now known, forms one thirds of a church and its conversion to a 12,102 square foot house did not delight everyone. Of it, back in 2001, The Telegraph’s Anne Atkins went as far to say: “[It is a] ghastly temple to Mammon… It is so awful I hardly know where to begin… Not my idea of a cosy home… Hideous and tacky… I tried to imagine living with this… The monstrosity of it… Vile.”

Knight Frank, who remain the selling agents, plainly still think otherwise and now market what they describe as an “extraordinary seven bedroom home” for £44 million. Referencing the pandemic directly, they add: “Owing to our commitment to keep both our colleagues and clients safe during this period of recommended isolation, we have many self-serve viewing options available to you. These include video walkthroughs, 360 virtual reality viewings and enhanced comprehensive photography.”

To see more pictures of this most curious conversion, click here.

The Numbers – St Saviour’s House, Walton Street, Knightsbridge, London, SW3 1SA

April 2020 – Reduced in price to £44 million ($54 million, €50 million or درهم198 million).

December 2019 – For sale for £55 million ($73 million, €66 million or درهم269 million).

April 2014 – Sold to a Saudi businessman for £41 million ($55 million, €49 million or درهم201 million).

2009 – Sold to a Thai businessman for £13.5 million ($18 million, €16 million or درهم66 million). An additional £10 million ($13.3 million, €12 million or درهم49 million) was spent on redevelopment.

2003 – Bought by lyricist Alain Boublil for £10 million ($13.3 million, €12 million or درهم49 million).

1998 – Half the church and the church hall sold by the Diocese of London for about £1.2 million ($1.6 million, €1.4 million or درهم5.9 million) for conversion into two dwellings. The central portion of the building retained as a place of worship.

1837 – Plot on which entirety of St Saviour’s Church now sits sold for £300 or the equivalent of £33,000 today ($44,000, €40,000 or درهم162,000 today) to the Metropolitan Church Fund.

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April 4, 2020
A Wyatt Wonder

“Hard head – healing hands” Welsh businessman looks to sell his £18 million Irish estate complete with a James Wyatt mansion and 1,120 acres; Sir David Davies became an Irish citizen after Brexit and has no time for Boris Johnson

Designed by Robert Adam’s rival James Wyatt in 1773 and “clothed in the Italiante manner” in 1859 to 1860, “grand and beautifully executed” Abbey Leix in County Laois is considered “one of Ireland’s most important country houses.”

Placed for sale last June for £17.8 million ($22 million, €20 million or درهم81 million), the main house on the 1,120-acre estate, Abbey Leix House – also known as ‘Abbeyleix House’ and’ Abbeyleix Castle’) – is vast and includes 26,910 square foot of accommodation. Aside from 9 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms, the classical building has amongst other things 3 major rooms on the park front, a deep hall, a music room with original Wyatt plasterwork, a library and a conservatory.

Sir David Davies (born in Wales in 1940) at Abbey Leix.

Renovated and remodeled since being sold to the Welsh born, twice divorced, father of five Sir David Davies in 1995 by its previous owners of the 250 years, the de Vesci family, Abbey Leix is described by agents Sotheby’s International Realty as a “21^st century family home with an appropriate balance between comfort and informality on the one hand and grandeur for entertaining and the display of art on the other.”

As well as Ireland’s oldest oak tree being within the grounds, the property also includes some of the “last surviving remnants of Ireland’s ancient woodland” and frontage to the River Nore. There is also a stud farm with 24 loose boxes, a separate farmyard with many outbuildings and 10 lodges and cottages on the estate. The present owner’s private airstrip was created because he wanted to be able to “fly from wherever in the UK straight into the estate.”

Of why he is selling Abbey Leix, “superstar banker and businessman” Sir David – who has variously held senior posts at Chase Manhattan Bank, Hill Samuel, MEPC, Hardine Matheson, Hong Kong Land, Johnson Matthey and EFG Private Bank – told the Business Post:

“I’m organising my whole estate for the benefit of my children… Although the children all love this place very much, none of them wanted to take it on… The typical refrain is ‘Dad, this is your project,’ and I’m lucky enough to have Killoughter House, the home of my childhood, to return to.”

Though born in Wales, Sir David – whom was knighted “for his work as chairman of the Advisory Committee on Business and the Environment” in 1999 – has maintained a home in Ireland throughout his adulthood. He “proudly” became an Irish citizen after Brexit and described “inept” Theresa May as “going from one catastrophe to that leads to the next catastrophe.” Of her successor, the opera loving son of a South Wales steel mill owner went further and recently remarked: “I have no time for Boris Johnson: he doesn’t do his homework, and can’t be trusted.”

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April 2, 2020
Philly G. Fails

Bully and braggart Sir Philip Green ditches his libel action against ‘The Telegraph’ and is deservedly met with a bill of £3 million in costs alone

Described as “Shylock meets Al Capone” in this publication by the actor Steven Berkoff, the now increasingly potless and rudderless Sir Philip Green has well and truly hit the buffers this morning.

Fat bruiser ‘Philly G’ tried to destroy The Telegraph in a bid to protect himself against their investigation into allegations of racial and sexual abuse against him. This brash, one-time “modern day monarch” – whose pig-like daughter has recently got herself pregnant by a violent felon – can now by heard in taped conversations with the paper’s Daniel Foggo. They reveal a foul-mouthed egoist with an incapability to respond rationally.

A businessman described once as “having the Midas touch,” Sir Philip – whose primary aim in all of this seems to be to protect his Lady Docker-like title obsessed wife, ‘Lady Tina’ – has finally met his match. We imagine he’ll today be wishing copies of The Telegraph be yesterday’s chip papers.

Some of the remarks made by Sir Philip Green in phone conversations with The Telegraph’s Daniel Foggo

“Let’s be intelligent.”

“If you damage the business, these people will need a new job… And your paper will end up bankrupt.”

“You’re not going [to publish] tomorrow… Do you want me to go and seek an injunction? I’ve got one against the government, I’ll get one against you.”

“Tell your editor to get smart… We’re not running away… So we don’t have to have a punch up… Get smart.”

Pictured above: Sir Philip Green looking disheveled and sweaty and with the then wife of his friend Richard Caring in better times. What a difference a few years make.

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February 8, 2019