The Steeple Times

Tag: Daily Mail

  • The badgers of Albany

    The badgers of Albany

    Matthew Steeples delves into the history of Albany, Piccadilly and discovers an affordable way of living there

     

    Albany, off Piccadilly in Mayfair, was most probably London’s first apartment block and it’s certainly the city’s most exclusive. It may be next to the Royal Academy and opposite Fortnum & Mason but surprisingly few have even heard of it.

     

    Considering its location, Albany, which some make the mistake of referring to as “The Albany,” is an amazingly quiet oasis of peace and tranquility but, equally, it is a place of intrigue and drama. Residents, or “proprietors,” as they prefer to be known, of the 69 “sets” are particular about the “the” part of the name as they’d rather their residence not be confused with a public house and they are even more protective of their privacy. A porters’ lodge guards the entrance to the building and it is staffed mostly by ex-servicemen, who, until the early 2000s, had to wear top hats and tailcoats. Those allowed to pass enter a rarefied world frequented by what the Irish novelist Marmion Savage (1803 – 1872) identified as “incurable oddities” and “superannuated fops” in The Bachelor of Albany.

     

    The front courtyard and façade of Albany, Piccadilly, Mayfair, London, W1J 0AL
    The rope-walk connecting the various sets of Albany has been traversed by some of the greatest names in history

    Built by Sir William Chambers (1723 – 1796), who also designed Somerset House and the pagoda at Kew, between 1770 and 1774 for 1st Viscount Melbourne (1745 – 1828), Albany was originally known as Melbourne House and conceived as a three-storey mansion, seven bays wide with a pair of service wings flanking a front courtyard. From 1791 to 1802, the property was occupied by George III’s son, Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany (1763 – 1827), but after he left, the renowned architect Henry Holland (1745 – 1806) sub-divided the existing house and added two parallel sets of buildings running the length of the garden to create 69 “bachelor apartments” which he named “sets.”

     

    The “roll call” of residents since could easily fill our very own pages thrice over. They number royalty, politicians, artists, playwrights, academics and philosophers and here is a brief selection:

     

    –       Anthony Armstong-Jones, later 1st Earl of Snowdon

    –       Sir Thomas Beecham

    –       Sir Isaiah Berlin

    –       Lord Byron

    –       George Canning

    –       Sir Kenneth Clark

    –       Baroness Pauline de Rothschild

    –       William Ewart Gladstone

    –       Sir Edward Heath

    –       David Hicks

    –       Aldous Huxley

    –       Sir Simon Jenkins

    –       Rupert Lycett Green

    –       Malcolm Muggeridge

    –       Sir Harold Nicholson

    –       J. B. Priestley

    –       Sir Terence Rattigan

    –       Roger Scruton

    –       Baroness Sharples

    –       W. Somerset Maugham

    –       Terence Stamp

    –       Sir Denis and Lady Thatcher

    –       Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree

     

    Each had to pass the vetting of a committee of trustees of this Grade I listed building. That committee forbids children under 14, pets, musical instruments and commercial activities and each approved resident has undoubtedly added to the history of this den dominated by a central walkway named the “rope-walk.” Incidentally, an example of a curious quirk at Albany is that no resident is allowed to speak to another on this walkway. If they do, a fine is incurred. Albany, indeed, is rather like a college in its systems of rules, regulations, order and hierarchy.

     

    For several centuries, women were not even allowed to cross the threshold and one legendary tale tells of Lady Caroline Lamb (1785 – 1828), disguised as a page boy, stealing into Lord Byron’s (1788 – 1824) set in 1815 to leave a note: “Remember me, Byron.” He replied with a simple verse:

     

    Remember thee, aye, doubt it not:

    Thy husband too shall think of thee.

    By neither shalt thou be forgot —

    Thou false to him, thou fiend to me.

     

    The strict and formal structure that controls Albany and ensured its maintenance has succeeded in the main because 34 of the 69 sets are owned by Peterhouse College, Cambridge. They and the other owners are highly particular in whom they lease to and on one occasion on hearing of an “unsuitable tenant,” the secretary of the trustees is reported to have shouted:

     

    “He’s a foreigner. Don’t like him. Don’t trust him.”

     

    Needless to say, that application didn’t progress and nor did one from a physiotherapist who planned to operate from the building. Bone bashing in Albany just wouldn’t do.

     

    The Rt. Hon. Alan Clark MP (1928 – 1999) in the grounds of his main home, Saltwood Castle, near Hythe in Kent in 1993

    A horsewhip, however, nearly crossed the threshold of set B5 in 1994, as it was here that the late Alan Clark MP (1928 – 1999) lived. The affable philanderer seduced the wife and both daughters of a certain South African named Judge Harkess and the wronged man stated he would “have horse-whipped Clark if he had known how comprehensively he had violated his honour.” B5, itself, was described as having the feel of “the straitened quarter of an Edwardian bachelor on his uppers” and the dotty, English attitude of the residents is best summed up by the reaction of Clark’s neighbour when he accidentally flooded their basement. When asked what he could do to make amends, their answer was quite simple: “Go and lie down in Piccadilly and wait for a double-decker bus.”

     

    The dandy and journalist John Morgan (1959 – 2000) typified social change at Albany in the 20th century just as much as he himself redefined etiquette and manners at Debrett’s and The Times. Of “humble origins,” Morgan was brought up in a “modest” bungalow in St Madoes, Perth, Scotland but is credited with persuading William Hague to remove his baseball cap whilst Conservative leader and offering advice ranging from “how to eat a banana” to “how best to tell friends that the partner you would like to bring to their wedding will be of the same sex as you.”

     

    Dandy and etiquette expert John Morgan (1959 – 2000)

    For the bachelor and GQ style director, living in Albany was symbolic of his own personal social elevation but he did not disown his past. This modern day Beau Brummell was a man of social contradictions who cashed his cheques at Claridge’s but was a member of the National Union of Journalists. He was a Tory but still regularly attended chapel meetings as he had done in his youth. Here was a man of paradoxes who seemed unable to come to terms with the fact that he was a homosexual.

     

    Morgan, an asthma sufferer, fell to his death from a fourth floor window on 9th July 2000. He was found in just a white shirt in a basement below a window whose sill was strangely undisturbed. The coroner left an open verdict with a suspicion of suicide and it was widely reported that police found 60 made-to-measure Savile row suits, 300 monogrammed shirts and 90 pairs of shoes in the etiquette expert’s small set. Mystery shrouds the story of his tragic demise to this day but Johnny Morgan will forever be remembered as an arbiter of both good taste and behaviour.

     

    Whilst Morgan represented continuation of the trend of bachelors living in Albany, change also came in the 20th century when the building’s committee removed the restriction that allowed only bachelors to be resident. With that females were allowed in and amongst them Fleur Fenton Cowles (1908 – 2009) was one of the most fascinating.

     

    Fleur Fenton Cowles (1908 – 2009) in her set at Albany with some of her paintings and one by Salvador Dali

    This writer and artist occupied five sets knocked into one with her fourth husband, timber merchant Tom Montague Meyer, and according to the Daily Mail’s Geoffrey Levy, hosted “elite soirees of the powerful and famous.” Levy recounts them at length but here is a flavour:

     

    “On a Wednesday evening, a typical dinner party… would include Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd, Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell, entertainer Danny Kaye and film star Douglas Fairbanks Jr. The Queen Mother regularly came to tea and was once joined by Pavarotti who sang Happy Birthday for the royal guest. ‘I don’t want her to die,’ said Fleur. ‘I couldn’t bear to think she doesn’t live just down the street.’ ”

     

    Fenton Cowles, founder of the ill-fated Flair magazine and a “woman who knew everyone,” loved Albany and an exact replica of her “windowless, milk-yellow” study there has even been recreated at the University of Texas.

     

    Another known for hosting extravagant bashes in Albany was my late friend, the Russian icon dealer John Gaze (1947 – 2011). Gaze had, as a boy, asked his father about the building when he passed it as a child and immediately declared he would live there one day. He took F2, the former set of Edward Heath that overlooked Savile Row to the rear, in the mid 1990s as he craved the safety that the building offered after having been kidnapped at gunpoint by an Oxford graduate conman named Sacheverell de Houghton in April 1991 from his then home in Fournier Street, E1. He made the most of his tenancy.

     

    Russian icon dealer John Gaze (1947 – 2011) reflected in the brass plaque outside his Albany set, F2. It was formerly occupied by Sir Edward Heath.

    Gaze’s parties included a fundraiser for people with AIDS hosted by a drag queen. This sparked fury with certain other residents and coverage in the Daily Telegraph and another incident there involved him encountering Alan Clark on the ropewalk carrying a portrait of Lenin. “Where the fuck are you taking that?” Clark supposedly bellowed but was “reassured” when he was told it was “destined for a less salubrious address in Whitechapel.” John Gaze remained at Albany for several years but, like a number of others I know, was forced out by ever rising rents and moved first to Chelsea and then Ennismore Gardens, Knightsbridge. He always remembered his time at Albany fondly and as a bon vivant, he truly belonged there.

     

    The main reception room in a £1,400 a week set currently available in Albany
    An attic room in the set that could be used as a second reception room or second bedroom
    The kitchen is lacking in character but offers ample space for informal dining

    Contrary to what you’d expect, living in Albany is not quite as expensive as one might think. A 2-bedroomed 1,970 square foot set is currently available through Knight Frank for £1,400 a week: a figure that seems quite reasonable given the location, history and size of this property. Available on a minimum 8-year rental term, it includes a formal reception room, a dining kitchen, 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.

     

    This £300 per week set, D2, consists of just one room
    The communal bathroom D2 shares with other sets is basic but clean

    For those looking for something cheaper, Savills offer D2 Albany at £300 per week. This set consists of a 221 square foot third floor attic room with access to a communal bathroom and the agents suggest that it: “would make an ideal reading or writing room or an occasional bedroom for a pied-a-terre.” It’s effectively a posh form of tenement but what a way to impress your peers and subordinates.

     

    Damon and Sandra de László in their “duplex” in Albany

    Those renting either of these sets would find the likes of the industrialist Damon de László, a descendant of the Hungarian painter Philip Alexius de László (1869 – 1937), as their neighbour. The couple occupy Lord Byron’s former set, A2, and have, on occasions, opened it for a charity dinner with Matthew Parris at £1,000 a ticket as well and for members of The Portrait Institute to view their collection of de László’s works.

     

    Professor Philip C. Bobbitt in his grand freehold set

     

    Another present day resident is a man Henry Kissinger calls “the outstanding philosopher of our times,” Professor Philip C. Bobbitt. This Texan lawyer is a nephew of Lyndon B. Johnson and the author of Terror and Consent, which Tony Blair describes as “required reading for political leaders.” Bobbitt owns an impressive flying freehold set that is described as having a masculine style of décor and a “kitchen he has designed to look like a bar.” In an interview for The Independent he states that he finds Albany: “a propitious place to work.”

     

    Though governments and bankers come and go, behind this quintessentially English façade, order and disorder have always been maintained. The wildcards of this hidden haven have a knack for living by the doctrine “to live at Albany is to live in history” and indeed they make the most of that. Those who are lucky enough to be let in, do, indeed, truly find themselves in the “Paradise of Piccadilly.”

     

    For more information about the £1,400 per week 2-bedroomed set in Albany, contact Knight Frank on +44 (0) 20 3641 2489 or go to: http://www.primelocation.com/to-rent/details/21089526?search_identifier=561863685a1a55b5da85141e12cfeec7

     

    For more information about the £300 per week attic room in Albany, contact Savills on +44 (0) 20 3641 2584 or go to: http://www.primelocation.com/to-rent/details/26791351?search_identifier=561863685a1a55b5da85141e12cfeec7

     

  • Liz Jones

    Liz Jones

    This mouthpiece was born in Rettendon, Essex in 1958 and vents bile on all manner of subjects. Articles such as: “Why don’t more women moan like me?” and “Liz Jones’ baby craving drove her to steal husband’s sperm in ultimate deception” are frankly illustrative of why she’s so unpopular. After she got banned from the majority of fashion shows and her husband left her, she quit London for Somerset in 2007 to feed organic muesli to the rats in the barns of a 47-acre farm she purchased as her “rural idyll.” That misadventure came to a sticky end in November 2012 after she’d alienated the whole county by calling them, amongst other things, “smelly” and “faintly Amish.” Goodness knows whom she’ll choose to offend next. Phillip Schofield sums her up best: “She is inconsistent, bitter, nasty and unhinged.” Our advice: Just steer well clear of this acid tongued poison pen.

  • The battleaxe in the Beemer

    The battleaxe in the Beemer

    Matthew Steeples examines the truth behind Liz Jones giving up on her “rural idyll”

     

    The Mail’s Liz Jones is a waspish woman who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Those who’ve paid even a moment’s attention to her bleating, will be familiar with lines such as: “Last week, my brand new £1,300 MacBook Pro broke” and “Phil Spencer wanted his £46,000 and he wanted it now!” She never stops talking about money and the size of what she both owns and owes.

     

    Liz Jones

    In today’s Femail, Jones bores on about about how she feels “like a cross-dresser” trying out the Kardashian Kollection of clothing in a pointed attack on Kim Kardashian, but it was for her diatribe yesterday that she truly got the goat of the nation in “[bidding] a ferocious farewell” to life in the country in an article entitled “Goodbye… and good riddance!” 2,151 people have commented so far and most of them have been far from sympathetic.

     

    When Upcott Farm at Brushford, near Dulverton in Somerset came up for sale in 2007 at a price of £1.6 million, it featured in an article by The Telegraph’s Caroline McGhie. The 5-bedroomed farmhouse came with a 2-bedroom annexe, a courtyard of barns and stables and 47 acres of land. McGhie waxed lyrical about the merits of moving to this location: “People come here for the peace and quiet, the night skies, the dramatic coastline, and they work from home,” she stated before adding: “You can find everything here, including butchers, bakers, afternoon tea and cake, fish and chips, an art gallery and a shop selling fishing tackle.” Of Upcott Farm itself, she concluded:

     

    “This would suit a member of the new wave of buyers dubbed Droppies (Disillusioned Relatively Ordinary Professionals Preferring Independent Employment Situations).”

     

    McGhie got it half right: Upcott Farm sold to someone who considers herself far from “relatively ordinary” and someone who is far from “professional.” The purchaser, however, was certainly someone who’d become “disillusioned” with what she’d bought and someone whose desire to be “independent” and create a “situation” just alienated all she encountered. The buyer, you’ve guessed it, was none other than Elizabeth Ann Jones.

     

    Jones was born in Brentwood, Essex in 1958 and studied journalism at the London College of Printing. She became editor of Marie Claire in 1999 but was sacked, she herself suggests, for “listing in the magazine the freebies she had been offered in the previous month.” Here, it seems, began Jones’s obsession with all things material and here she also met an Indian BBC radio journalist named Nirpal Dhaliwal in 2000.

     

    Jones married Dhaliwal but the union was to prove an “utter disaster” as he had affairs with women she terms “younger, dimmer [and] slimmer.” “I’m no racist” Jones was divorced in 2007 and said goodbye to her “3,000 square foot of Islington real estate” and “easy, if super-busy, London life” in favour of the green, green grass of Somerset.

     

    Upcott Farm, Brushford, Dulverton, Somerset, TA22 9RS

    Whoever’s side you see it from, five years of hell followed. Jones baited the locals and they grew to loathe her. She wrote columns and a book, The Exmoor Files, where she attacked them as “faintly Amish… feral, old and smelly” and another hack and neighbour, Jane Alexander of The Telegraph, responded: “Dulverton [was] positively fizzing with fury” after each and every publication.

     

    Of the local restaurants, Jones stated:

     

    “I have given up trying to eat out in restaurants here on Exmoor… It is still stuck in the Seventies, with only things in baskets and rum babas on the menu… If you tell the waiter you are vegetarian, you are stared at, incredulously, as if you are black.”

     

    She whinged about her inability to find love:

     

    ”I will never, ever meet a man here in the middle of a moor, where even to be in possession of your own teeth is a bonus.”

     

    And whined about fieldsports:

     

    “I didn’t increase my popularity by being unable to pass a party of men and often children with guns, shooting rabbits and deer, without getting out of my BMW and saying: ‘Do you really have nothing better to do with your Saturday morning?’ The look of shock on their faces that I had the cheek to challenge them was priceless. I would stop, too, and shout at huntsmen on horses, galloping on tarmaced roads, one hand on the reins, the other clamping a mobile phone to their heads. ‘You will ruin your horses’ tendons!’ I would wail.”

     

    Whilst Jones found little to like in her new community, they found nothing positive in her arrival either. Her dog was blamed for worrying lambs, and Jones’s inability to control it, locals say, was an indicator of the chasm between her life and theirs. In 2009, one neighbour went as far as to tell Danny Brierley of The Independent:

     

    “We have got nothing in common with her, really. I think she may find it difficult to make any kind of life here now. She is not a very friendly person and we are all sick to death of talking about Liz Jones. A hatred has been building up for months. She is actually having a go at people and they are not going to tolerate that. She has feelings like all people, of course she has. But everyone wants her to leave and leave now. No one can make her, but we think she will go. I don’t see how you can live in such a small community with people who think that way about you.”

     

    Matters came to a head when Jones’s precious black BMW convertible, “bought in 2005 for £26,000,” was pelted with eggs and teenagers fired shots at her letterbox with an air rifle. A local councilor even dressed up as her in the local carnival and yesterday Jones took revenge on those she blames for her “five-year prison sentence” and deprivation from Space NK, Cath Kidston and Illy coffee.

     

    Instead, the article just shows the true reality of this bombastic harpy. The lines Jones penned speak for themselves. Country people don’t welcome someone who planned to “hack for miles across the open moorland in my Prada jodhpurs” anymore than the folk of Knightsbridge welcome Arabs treating their roads like racetracks. The gardener who had to endure Jones yelling “walk faster!” at him didn’t deserve such anymore than a bus driver in SW11 deserves abuse from his passengers. Jones concludes:

     

    “I’m now a different person. I became so lonely. I would often get in my car, not just for the warmth, but for the kind voice of the satnav lady. I’ve learned that an amazing view and a pair of nesting grey herons are not enough to make me happy.”

     

    27 acres of land including paddocks and a fishing lake remain on the market through Savills and Strutt & Parker at a price of £200,000 at Upcott Farm

    Miss Jones bleats that she’s taken a £500,000 loss on Upcott Farm, which languished on the market at first at £1,900,000 and then £1,750,000 for three years. The “unexpected” sale of the property has given her the ability to “flee back to the city” but the locals and even the “Droopies” should be warned: there’s still 27 acres of the farm unsold and on the market at a price of £200,000. Halloween may have passed but the battleaxe in the Beemer could still call again.

     

    Read yesterday’s “Goodbye… and good riddance!” article by Liz Jones for the Mail on Sunday at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2231033/Goodbye–good-riddance-During-catastrophic-years-country-Liz-Jones-greeted-gun-attack-relentless-abuse-Now-flees-city-bids-ferocious-farewell.html

     

    To purchase Liz Jones’s book, The Exmoor Diaries, go to: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Exmoor-Files-Husband-Found-Rural/dp/0297854437

     

    For more information about the remaining 27 acres at Upcott Farm, contact Strutt & Parker on +44 (0) 1392 976005 or go to: http://www.primelocation.com/for-sale/details/18314693?search_identifier=71cbb8a2fb43a12182bfa7b79b5de0a3

  • Nad's not that Mad

    Matthew Steeples suggests that Nadine Dorries is perhaps right to head for the jungle

     

    Don’t get me wrong: I think Nadine Dorries is an utter loon. For those who haven’t heard of her, she’s the MP for Mid-Bedfordshire and a bit of a mouthpiece. Her entry on our roll call attracted over 8,000 hits yesterday and that alone is clear indication that she, unlike the majority of dimwits that occupy the Houses of Parliament, is an MP who gets noticed.

     

    Nadine Dorries heads for the jungle

    “Gets noticed,” I hear you splutter. Yes, she’s someone who loves the limelight and doesn’t care whom she offends. She’s best known for having described David Cameron and George Osborne as a pair of “arrogant posh boys” who “don’t know the price of milk” and is regularly derided for her “maverick” ways. Here is a woman who gets compared to Ann Widdecombe and Edwina Currie and one that hasn’t let her party tell her what to do.

     

    In the House of Commons she’s achieved little apart from becoming a figure of fun. She’s commonly known as “Mad Nad” and the media reel her out whenever they fancy a bit of sport. Dorries can be relied upon to produce lines such as: “[I’m] not an MP for any other reason other than because God wants me to be” and these indeed are classic examples of her idiocy.

     

    On Tuesday, it was announced that Ms. Dorries, on full parliamentary pay, has headed off to Australia to participate in the ITV1 television series I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! For this, she’s pocketing a fee of circa £40,000 and will, without doubt, rake in a lot more in appearance fees and for interviews on her return. MPs and the media derided this move but I congratulate her.

     

    Martha Payne

    I cannot disagree with those who state that she’d be fired if she were in a normal job and just disappeared for a month, but “Mad Nad” has realised that the Conservative Party is not the place for her. She has plainly come to the conclusion that the House of Commons is nothing other than a chamber full of hot air and that to get things changed, you follow the example of the schoolgirl Martha Payne and use technology and the media to the max. With NeverSeconds, this fearless 9-year old took on the might of a council and improved school dinners. In the meantime, MPs haven’t even been able to come up with an appropriate solution to restore the Houses of Parliament, let alone solve a nation in the midst of economic meltdown.

     

    Frankly, we have too many MPs in this country and they don’t work hard enough. In total, there are 650 and this corresponds to one for every 68,000 parliamentary electors. It would be better to halve this number and double the pay of the remainder. We’d get better quality people applying to be our representatives and people like “Mad Nad” would be a thing of the past. Nadine Dorries isn’t an A-list “celebrity” but she should most certainly stick to the jungle.

     

    Follow Nadine Dorries on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/nadinedorriesmp

  • A long, long Savile road

    A long, long Savile road

    Why does the Savile story really keep running?

     

    We’re all Saviled out. It’s been more than eight weeks since revelations about Jimmy, formerly Sir Jimmy, Savile came to public attention. Yes, the horrors of his “activities” have appalled us all but frankly why do the media really keep this story running as a main news item?

     

    It does what it says on the tin

    We’ve been as much a part of this monstrous escapade as anyone else: our editor went on the BBC to talk about the scandal and we’ve even received messages of support from Savile’s twisted “friends.” We beat the Daily Mail in being the first to report on the sale of the paedophile’s flat in Leeds and spotted Sir George Young removing a photo of him and Savile from his website before any other. We admit it: our readers plainly are as intrigued by this story as much as we were curious enough to report on it.

     

    It suited our Prime Minister very nicely to wheel out Theresa May yesterday to announce an inquiry into the activities of another supposed child molester who just happened to be a member of Margaret Thatcher’s government. “Why so?” we hear you justifiably ask. Well, just like the spinner Jo Moore “burying bad news” on 9/11, the US elections were the perfect opportunity to dispense of the activities of a certain magnate beneath the Tarmac®. Somehow, though, and as much as she tried to smooth things over, we don’t think May’s attempts at concreting over this particular highway will set satisfactorily.

  • Boujis in the basement?

    Boujis in the basement?

    Matthew Steeples explores the story of an empty Kensington mansion

     

    A multi-million pound 8-bedroomed house in Kensington isn’t anything unusual. In fact, rather, they’re ten a penny. In this, one of the wealthiest boroughs in the land, large, expensive homes are just the norm.

     

    An image of the existing exterior of No. 1 Campden Hill, London, W8 7AD
    A rendered image of how the exterior of the renovated property might look
    The plans show a vast subterranean development that will vastly increase the size of No. 1 Campden Hill

    No. 1 Campden Hill, which is being marketed for an undisclosed eight-figure sum, is in a quite different league. Here is a detached Edwardian house in an acre of grounds just to the north of Kensington High Street. It’s an unrenovated property but it attracted much press attention in October 2011 because it was place on the market in October 2011 at a price of £75,000,000. Yes, you heard it right: £75 million for a fixer-upper. Last week, Radio 4 made a hell of a fuss about a derelict semi-detached house in Newcastle selling for just £14,000 so this truly must be something special.

     

    Architect Edward P. Warren (1856 – 1937), far right, in the offices of Bodley & Garner, 14 South Square, Gray’s Inn, London

    The architect of the house Edward Prioleau Warren (1856 – 1937), a Bristol born architect and archaeologist, was best known for “Oxford colleges and minor country houses” but also designed the War Cemetery at Basra. He was a friend and adviser to the American novelist Henry James and in addition to building No. 1 Campden Hill in 1915, he also designed a house at 5 Palace Green in 1906 and another, Estcort House in Kensington Palace Gardens, in 1904. Warren’s guiding style is described as having been to recreate an “understated revival of English late 17th century” architecture and at No. 1 Campden Hill he created just that.

     

    Colonel Edmond Grove-Hills (1864 – 1922), born Edmond Hills, and his wife, Juliet Spencer-Bell, were the architect’s clients. A plaque on the building bares their names and the following dedication:

     

    This House I built for Me & Mine

    May it be of Peace A Shrine

    And no Enmity or Sin

    Ever find its way therein

    AD 1915

     

    Sadly for the Grove-Hills, the following year, their son, Second Lieutenant Charles Herbert-Hills (1895 – 1916) was killed on the Somme aged just 21. His father, meanwhile, was awarded a CBE in 1918 after having served as the Assistant Chief Engineer of Eastern Command during the war.

     

    Aside from his military exploits, Edmond Grove-Hills is best known for his role as president of the Royal Astronomical Society. He took part in observations of eclipse of the sun in Japan in 1896, India in 1898 and Russia in 1914 and contributed papers analysing both this and the causes of the irregular movements of the earth’s axis of rotation.

     

    In 1951, No. 1 Campden Hill was purchased by the government of Uruguay and it became the residence of their ambassador to the United Kingdom. For the next fifty years the building was barely altered but when the lease from the Phillimore Kensington Estate came to an end, there were legal problems as the 1951 transfer had never been stamped. Of this, Sharon Mulroney of Forsters, the legal representatives of Phillimore, commented:

     

    “It is highly unusual to be faced with complications of this kind when dealing with a registered London title, but this made the transaction all the more fascinating. Even the decision to allow ambassadorial staff to return to the property for security purposes after completion was fraught with potential problems about security of tenure, employment and tax.”

     

    The proposed site plan shows the addition of a garden pavilion, staff/security cottage and a tennis court

    Eventually, without issue, the Phillimore Estate sold on the house in 2001 for a price of approximately £17,000,000. In the years since, the property was effectively mothballed as all the purchasers have done is to have obtained planning permission to redevelop the building into a mammoth mansion of epic proportions.

     

    A computer rendered image of how the drawing room might look
    The “leisure area” is reminiscent of the entrance to The Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park Hotel
    The private home cinema would be the envy of any movie buff
    The swimming pool
    The wine cellar is rather like a contemporary take on Berry Bros. & Rudd’s flagship store in St. James’s Street
    And to complete it all… The plans include your own version of Boujis in the basement

    The approved plans show designs for something quite remarkable. Warren’s “understated” residence will be replaced with 8 vast bedroom suites, grand entertaining spaces, a lift and even bedrooms for 5 staff. In addition to a full-scale renovation of the original freehold house, there is scope to provide a total of 30,000 square feet of accommodation by adding a huge subterranean complex that will include a 25-metre swimming pool, court, squash court, gym, sauna, steam room, function room, entertainment room, home cinema, wine tasting room and even a nightclub to rival any of Kensington’s trendiest haunts.

     

    On that basis alone, No. 1 Campden Hill is surely the ideal residence for Prince Harry: “Who needs Boujis?” we hear him cry.

     

    No. 1 Campden Hill, London, W8 7AD is for sale through Knight Frank. For more details contact Roddy Craggs on +44 (0) 20 7938 4311 or go to: http://search.knightfrank.com/ken100161 to download a brochure.

     

    For more information about The Phillimore Estate, go to: http://www.phillimore-kensington-estate.co.uk

  • The Savile defence

    The Savile defence

    Hugo Istay discovers Jimmy Savile’s most unlikely advocates: The Daily Mail

     

    Here are some quotes from that bastion of the country’s morals, The Daily Mail. Apparently Jimmy Savile had been collecting ones like these for years to aid his defence should the proverbial hit the fan.

     

    A screenshot of the somewhat “sexed-up” first version of the MailOnline article

    A screenshot of the somewhat “toned-down” second version of the MailOnline article

     

    He was going to kick off his case with:

     

    “Elle Fanning looks all grown up at 14.”

     

    And then follow up with:

     

    “She may be only 14, but rising star Elle Fanning isn’t counting on her good genes or youth to keep her slim. Wearing black cropped spandex jazz dance pants and orange Nike trainers, the little sister of Dakota had obviously been letting loose in the dance studio as her usually silky hair was hanging down in a sweaty tangle.”

     

    No sexual innuendo there, then.

     

    Next, he’d add:

     

    ”Dressed in a satin babydoll-style top, black skinny jeans and patent peep-toe wedges, Elle looked mature beyond her 14 years.”

     

    Or this:

     

    “She has a maturity that belies her years, so sometimes it’s difficult to remember that Elle Fanning is only fourteen years old.”

     

    And, if all else failed:

     

    “The 14-year-old took to Instagram to share a photograph of her Halloween outfit and wasn’t afraid to flaunt her curves for the camera.”

     

    He then planned to sum up with:

     

    “So it wasn’t my fault M’Lud, I was misled and egged on by the Daily Mail.”

     

    Maybe there should be a crime of journalistic paedophilia.

     

    Read the Mail Online’s original (now edited) article at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2226294/Halloween-2012-Elle-Fanning-pays-homage-New-Yorks-Statue-Liberty.html

     

    This article was originally published on Hugo Istay’s blog. Follow him at: http://hugoistay.wordpress.com/

  • Urs Schwarzenbach

    Urs Schwarzenbach

    This Swiss born son of a printer has spent over £85 million buying up properties in the Henley-on-Thames area of Oxfordshire. Schwarzenbach also owns 123,000 acres in Australia, 26,000 acres in Scotland and has his own polo team, the Black Bears. This financier’s foreign exchange dealership, Interexchange, is the biggest in Switzerland and betting against the dollar has brought much success. He supposedly even named his Gulfstream G650 “George” as “ultimately it was Bush who paid for it.” Whilst Schwarzenbach’s Grand Hotel Dolder in Zurich wins plaudits galore. an investment in Mayfair’s Café Grand Prix was less successful. It is, however, for philanthropy and discretion that Schwarzenbach and his wife, a former Miss Australia, are known best.

  • Hugh Bonneville

    Hugh Bonneville

    In his role as Downton Abbey’s Lord Grantham, this actor warned that “scandals” always have a habit of coming out. He graduated in Theology at Cambridge but, according to Adam Helliker of the Daily Express, Bonneville wasn’t especially keen to show Christian compassion towards Lord Archer at a party at The Cadogan Hotel when it was requested that the pair be photographed together.

  • Gaby Hinsliff

    Gaby Hinsliff

    We’ve got nothing against this respected journalist and writer, but when we heard that the fashion mag Grazia had a “Political Editor at Large” we thought it was April Fool’s Day. Hinsliff also blogs at usedtobesomebody.blogspot.com and states that she resigned as political editor of The Observer to go “in search of a life.” She’s based in Oxfordshire and published her first book, Half A Wife, in 2012. In it, she advises on “how to balance a happy, healthy family life with the demands and rewards of work.” There are plenty out there who ought to pay attention.