‘The Devil’s Advocate’ Giovanni Di Stefano’s life is set to be made into a film following his forthcoming release from jail (and deportation from Britain)
In March 2014, the incarcerated conman Giovanni Di StefanotweetedThe Steeple Times to claim he had cheated “no one” before adding: “Who did I kill?” In spite of the fact that this po-faced prattler and all-round prick had been convicted and jailed for 14 years for “tricking people into thinking he was a bona fide legal professional” when he was anything but in 2013, he’s shortly about to get out of jail and after deportation from Britain will be participating in a film about his life and lies.
For plainly extremely intelligent but completely lacking in any kind of moral compass Di Stefano’s victims – whom include Tricia Walsh-Smith, a lady best known for making a video that went viral after it was published on YouTube during her especially acrimonious divorce from the then president of The Shubert Organization – this film will pile yet more misery on their already substantial losses. The film, which is to be made by six Academy Award nominated director Jim Sheridan, is based on a biography written by this “one of life’s great swindler’s” plainly anything but impartial son, Michael Di Stefano.
Currently titled The Devil’s Advocate – How to Win Fiends and Influence Despots in a plain nod to Dale Carnegie and Toby Young also, Sheridan commented of it: “It’s very easy to see this as a dramatic feature, but I think for now – the documentary form will suit the story better. This is an intriguing story and truly unique. The lead character is simply unbelievable, and we are delighted to have the exclusive co-operation of Giovanni, his family, his long-term assistant and his personal lawyer to tell the story.”
Going further, executive producer Jezz Vernon of Port Royal Media added: “The subject material is jaw dropping, we’re excited to bring Jim’s vision of the story to the screen. It’s a huge coup that Giovanni and his family have chosen to work exclusively with us.”
Summing rotten ratbag “defender of the indefensibles” Di Stefano – whose supposed clients in spite of him having no legal qualifications whatsoever up allegedly numbered ‘Moors Murderer’ Ian Brady, paedo pop singer Gary Glitter, slum lord Nicholas van Hoogstraten, deranged dictator Saddam Hussein, warped war criminal Slobodan Milošević and pensioner slayer Dr Harold Shipman – up in March 2013 before sending him down, Judge Alistair McCreath, the Recorder of Westminster, stated:
“Your victims in this case were all desperate people and people who, because of their desperation, were vulnerable… It is also about something different and great – it is about the real distress you caused to so many people… You had no regard for them nor for their anguish… Your only concern was to line your own pockets.”
Any film that suggests anything to the contrary will be nothing but claptrap.
On 11th May, Michael Di Stefano tweeted complaing his father’s prison sentence to be “arbitrary and unlawful.”In spite of being incarcerated, in April, Giovanni Di Stefano was able to tweet his views on MI5 whilst his son claimed the “UK breaks the rules to hold him.”Also in April, Di Stefano tweeted his sorrow about the death of the Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff and claimed he’d written to President Trump to ask him to put him “on his pardon list.”In February, this prisoner was able to post nonsense on his blog about predictions also.In January, Di Stefano tweeted about his sadness on the passing of the murderer Phil Spector.
Vast Scots Baronial mansion Carbisdale Castle – nicknamed ‘The Castle of Spite’ – goes on sale for sum 97% lower than it cost to build in the 1900s and 25% less than the sum spent on its 2010 renovation
A mega-mansion termed “the last grand castle built in Scotland” that cost £62 million to build between 1905 and 1917 has gone on sale for just £1.5 million in spite of developers having spent a small fortune on its renovation to date.
Extending to 41,433 square foot, category B-listed Carbisdale Castle in Sutherland is gargantuan in size compared to an average 818 square foot British home. Its construction began after the resolution of the then Dowager Duchess of Sutherland, Mary Caroline’s dispute with her late husband’s children from his first marriage, but ultimately the palatial pad was not completed until five years after her own demise.
Cash Consuming Carbisdale Castle – Mary Caroline, Dowager Duchess of Sutherland (1848 – 1912) and George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, His Grace The 3rd Duke of Sutherland (1828 – 1892). According to one source, the “deviant duchess” enjoyed an astonishing income of £100,000 per year until her death and married her third husband, a politician and businessman, Sir Albert Rollit (1842 – 1922) in 1896.Cash Consuming Carbisdale Castle – The castle was used as a youth hostel for 66 years from 1945 until 2011.Cash Consuming Carbisdale Castle – Its vast size made it ideal for institutional usage.
Featured on these pages in August 2014 and April 2016 after it was placed for sale after being used for 70 years as a youth hostel, the allegedly haunted building was sold to a London based investment firm now known as Faro Capital after being reduced in price from £1.2 million to £900,000. At this stage, £2 million had already been spent on renovations due to extensive water damage in 2010.
In the years since, Faro Capital have cleared Carbisdale Castle of its institutional contents and put in place plans to return the structure to use as what they term a “world class single family residence.” Now, of its current condition, a surveyor recently remarked: “The building offers a superb blank canvas,” according to current selling agents Strutt & Parker.
Speaking to The Scotsman late last week, Robert McCulloch for Strutt & Parker remarked of the sale of Carbisdale Castle:
“Already there has been interest. The property is in a state of partial renovation so it lends itself to being either a private residence or a commercial venture.”
“There has been interest in it as a hotel and also those who are interested in its charitable use. With its proximity to the North Coast 500 driving route and the rise in domestic tourism, I am sure people will see a lot of opportunity in this property.”
Carbisdale Castle, however, is still not without problems. Aside from its vast size and the associated costs of maintaining such a white elephant, it comes with a mere 20 acres of land and that is split into various spread-apart parcels. Thus, for a likely oligarch or business titan buyer – who will have to be someone with very, very deep pockets – privacy and security will remain an obvious issue.
The Names & Numbers – Carbisdale Castle, Culrain, Ardgay, Sutherland, IV24 3DP, Scotland, United Kingdom
May 2021 – Placed for sale with Strutt & Parker for £1.5 million ($2.1 million, €1.7 million or درهم7.6 million) or the equivalent of just £36.20 per square foot.
2017 onwards – Of progress since purchase by Faro Capital, Strutt & Parker remarked in 2021: “The current position is that, since 2017, significant works have been carried out to the castle pursuant with the approved consent but the works required to complete the project have been put on hold.”
“This provides the flexibility to purchasers to either complete the development of the castle as a private home, or seek to vary the Listed Building Consent to include the development of the building for commercial use or the subdivision of the building as residential apartments.”
“The intention of the project was to combine all of the decorative features and grandeur of the Dowager Duchess of Sutherland’s original creation with services, systems, fixtures, fittings and layout of the highest contemporary quality together with reorganisation of the existing accommodation to suit 21st Century living and the development of a spa and swimming pool as complementary features.”
Works to Carbisdale Castle have included the stripping down of the building, the removal of redundant items, the excavation of a proposed swimming pool and the replacement of heating systems and lighting circuits.
September 2016 – Sold to Sloane Street, London based Faro Capital Limited (formerly known as the FCFM Group), who planned to turn the building into a “world class residence.”
April 2016 – Reduced in price to just £900,000 ($1.2 million, €1 million or درهم4.6 million) or the equivalent of just £21.70 per square foot.
August 2014 – Offered for sale by Savills for £1.2 million ($1.7 million, €1.4 million or درهم6.1 million).
2010 onwards – After extensive water damage caused by frost, £2 million ($2.8 million, €2.3 million or درهم10.1 million) is spent on renovations.
1945 – 2011 – Used as a youth hostel.
1944 – Gifted to the Scottish Youth Hostel Association (SYHA) by Colonel Salvesen’s son, Captain Harold Salvesen.
22nd June 1941 – Used as the location to host the Carbisdale Conference at which it was “agreed that that the Russian forces, should they enter Norwegian territory, would not stay there after the war.”
1933 – Sold to Norwegian shipping and whaling tycoon Colonel Theodore Salvesen and used during the Second World War as a “safe refuge” for King Haakon VII of Norway and Crown Prince Olav, later King Olav V, during the Nazi occupation of Norway.
The Dowager Duchess (better known as ‘Duchess Blair’) had been jailed for 6 weeks after being found guilty of stealing documents during her divorce and when that was eventually finalised, it was agreed that a castle would be built for her just outside the Sutherland lands.
She intentionally chose – supposedly to spite them – a prominent hillside site visible from the very railway line the Sutherlands used to travel south and insisted that the clock tower of the house only had three clock faces. On the side facing Sutherland, the face is blank as “the Duchess did not wish to give the time of day to her former relatives.” As a result, Carbisdale Castle gained the nickname ‘The Castle of Spite.’
Matthew Steeples argues that Daniel Johnson’s “Come on Carrie: your country needs you!” call to Boris Johnson’s wine chucking latest baby mama is nothing but claptrap
The Article is one of those online titles that one can dip into from time to time and find an array of opinions about politics. It claims to show “the world in all its shades of grey” and though that’s not meant in a ‘John Major style’ (thank the Lord), the publication’s attempts to “see a story from every angle” is indeed refreshing.
Yesterday, however, the title’s editor Daniel Johnson – the brother of the controversial right-wing Vote Leave and anti-lockdown COVID Recovery Group funding former owner of the Pizza Express group Luke Johnson – penned quite frankly the most bizarre article known to man.
Daniel Johnson, also a founding editor of Standpoint and described by the Independent as having “the air of a classics don” and listed on Wikipedia for having “asserted that Islam in not a peaceful religion,” asked: “Why isn’t the Prime Minister calling for a post-Covid catch-up campaign [for British school children]?” He then turned to what he believes should happen in the wake of Prince Philip’s funeral tomorrow.
Bizarrely and from utterly nowhere, the journalist went off on a seriously odd tangent and declared:
“Our sympathy for the Royal Family is all the greater because this has been a sad time for so many others, too. After so many funerals, a wedding would not come amiss. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a divorced man in possession of the good fortune to be Prime Minister must be in want of a wife.”
“Next month Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds will have been engaged for 18 months. Once the restrictions on weddings have been lifted in June, there is nothing to stop them getting married. Not everyone would rejoice, but most people would wish them well. Royal weddings happen regularly; prime ministerial ones are rare birds. Indeed, the last time a Prime Minister tied the knot while in office was in 1822, when Lord Liverpool remarried after being widowed.”
“If a week is a long time in politics, two centuries is an aeon. There are many reasons why Boris might be hesitant, but his fiancée is no shrinking violet and is quite capable of insisting that the time has come. Little Wilfred is growing fast. The nation needs cheering up. Come on, Carrie: your country needs you!”
Aside from the fact that most of the nation would prefer Prime Minister Johnson to be focusing on getting the current out of the Covid crisis and fixing our economy, ‘Journalist Johnson’ misses the point entirely about the country’s thoughts about our serial shagging head honcho.
Whilst Tory sleaze – with the Greenshill scandal and the likes of Matt Hancock handing out multi-million pound contracts willy-nilly to his mates – is dominating the headlines, I’d argue that our country needs a little less of ‘Costly Carrie’ and not a bit more. With her penchant for £200,000 “monstrous” interior design makeovers and £12,500 deliveries of food from ritzy Daylesford, here is a Barbara Amiel-esque wastrel completely out of touch with the nation.
“Absolutely nothing” is frankly the only acceptable answer.
Next!
Don’t Come On Carrie! Boris Johnson’s current squeeze Carrie Symonds was described by her alleged spreader of fake news about Russia ex-boyfriend Oliver Haiste (sometimes spelt ‘Haste’) as: “Any relationship with Carrie or friendship with Carrie is very intense and can often burn brightly… Never boring… Tumultuous… Intense and passionate… That passion can work the other way when she is not happy with you… It’s the most up and down relationship I have had.”Don’t Come On Carrie! Rumours of Boris Johnson’s affairs continue to do the rounds on social media. Aside from a supposed ongoing fling with a certain tame BBC journalist, the Prime Minister has been repeatedly linked to various Russians.Don’t Come On Carrie! The man pictured left believes “Boris Johnson was sent by Christ” to “fulfill bible prophecy” whilst a parody magazine mocked the Prime Minister with a headline: “Scumbag Exposed! My hubby had TWELVE children before WE MET!”
Wiltshire manor house once owned by the Duchess of Cornwall and considered as a home by the Duchess of Cambridge’s parents again for sale
Described as a “royal love nest for the Middletons” by The Telegraph when last marketed for sale in March 2011, Bolehyde Manor (pronounced according to the paper: “Bow lea Hyde”) in Wilshire was home to the Duchess of Cornwall, as plain old Camilla Parker Bowles, from 1973 until 1986.
Considered, but subsequently discounted by Carole and Michael Middleton as a home prior to their purchase of the £4.7 million The Manor at Bucklebury (featured in The Steeple Times in June 2012), Grade II* listed Bolehyde Manor at Allington, near Chippenham was at that time offered for £4.76 million according to the Daily Mail’s Richard Kay.
Kay lauded the “14th-century pile near Chippenham” as having “everything an aspiring lord (and lady and the manor could wish for” and reported it as having been “not just where Prince Charles retreated when his marriage crumbled, intriguingly it was also where he courted Lady Diana.”
According to the royal biographer Christopher Wilson – quoted in an article in the Daily Express in May this year – “in 1979, there was very little pretense about the intensity of the relationship between Prince Charles and Camilla. Most of the week he would be staying at Bolehyde Manor, sometimes Andrew Parker Bowles would come home for the weekend and Prince Charles would stay. But there was a very curious ménage à trois between these three.”
Whether the house sold in 2011 is unknown, but this week it has again been placed for sale through agents Savills. They are marketing the manor at a sum £1 million lower for £3.75 million and with it comes 80.13 acres.
Aside from the main 4 reception room, 8-bedroom main house, there is a 3-bedroom annexe and in addition the property has three additional cottages, stabling and outbuildings. There is a tennis court and swimming pool with the grounds and the majority of the land is devoted to organic farming.
One thing is, for sure, the former Meghan Markle won’t be putting in a bid in spite of Bolehyde Manor having glorious gardens that have opened under the National Garden Scheme.
The Names & Numbers – Bolehyde Manor, Allington, Chippenham, Wiltshire, SN14 6LW, United Kingdom
June 2020 – For sale for £3.75 million ($4.71 million, €4.21 million or درهم17.31 million) through Savills.
March 2011 – Offered for sale for £4.76 million ($5.98 million, €5.35 million or درهم21.96 million) by the Earl and Countess Cairns.
1986 – Sold for £600,000 ($754,000, €674,000 or درهم2.8 million) by Andrew and Camilla Parker Bowles to Simon and Amanda Cairns.
1973 – Andrew Parker Bowles moves in along with his then wife Camilla.
1927 – Sold to a Mrs Mallet du Cros “in very indifferent repair” by the Gale family according to Country Life. She “restored and modernised it.”
1635 – Sold to a yeoman named John Gale.
Mid 17th century – Built on the site of an earlier house occupied by one Thomas de Bolehyde, a tenant of the Abbot of Glaston-bury.
Pictured top: Carole Middleton, Bolehyde Manor and the Duchess of Cornwall.
The interior features traditional English country house style decoration.This study is currently lined with plenty of reading material.Original features including panelling abound throughout Bolehyde Manor.A pleasant courtyard garden is to be found to the rear of the house.To the front is a formal lawned area.Three cottages come with the house as well as an annexe also.The gardens have previously been opened to the public under the National Garden Scheme.They are quite delightful.A plan of the 80 acres currently offered with Bolehyde Manor.
At a time when her billionaire brother Sir Richard is deservedly taking a pounding for trying to rape the state, multi-millionairess Vanessa Branson could have perhaps postponed the launch of her self-indulgent autobiography
It’s not Vanessa Branson’s fault that she’s the sister of the all-round dickhead Sir Richard Branson, but it is she alone whom made the choice to gauchely publicise a book about her anything but modest life during the worst pandemic since Spanish Flu.
Serialised, as only it could be in the top paying publication for such guff, the Daily Mail, Vanessa Branson’s One Hundred Summers: A Family Story has a stench of what the Scottish would call “guff” about it. Aside from bemoaning “sulking about” buying a tidal island complete with 9 houses in the Inner Hebrides – which she terms “Neverland Found” – this privileged woman boldly touts her book as: “Taking the reader on a journey from the dying embers of Edwardian England, through the trauma of two world wars, the hedonism of London in the 1980s and ‘Cool Britannia’ in the 1990s right up to the present day.” How utterly endearing.
Just like her self-publicising brother, this constantly crying 61-year old former art gallery owner plainly cannot get enough of herself. Here is a ramble through holidays in palazzos in Venice and trips to LA; there’s an arts festival in Morocco and there’s a second home in Sussex. Life ain’t that shabby for this woman, but all she does is moan. Her husband comes and goes (and comes and goes again and again), but with such she name-drops how Grayson Perry gave her a pot charmingly featuring the words “Marriage Wrecker” next to “images of fat middle-aged men with drooping breasts and sagging scrotums” and Tracey Emin wrote her a poem for her to use on her headboard. Its read: “Oh God you made me feel so beautiful/ And then I wanted to feel it again and again. With myself, by myself/ Never forgetting.” That’s surely enough to make anyone join in blubbering with this very, very rich multi-millionairess.
With her brattish brother condemned even by that pillar of capitalism that is The Telegraph as “Now Virgin Atlantic’s biggest liability,” Vanessa Branson could not have chosen a worse time to launch her tome. Though lauded as: “A vivid and charming tapestry of English eccentricity, fortune, fate and passion,” One Hundred Summers is more likely to ultimately be remembered just as a tale of the pathetic appendage of the deservedly most loathed man of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. Here is one book we most definitely will not be recommending as essential lockdown literature.
A classic ‘rags to riches’ tale is that of Penny Streeter. Born in what was then Rhodesia, this police superintendent’s daughter came to England when she was 12 and worked on Margaret Thatcher’s Youth Training Scheme and in Pizzaland at the age of 16. She went into business with her mother at 22, went bust and after ending up living in a homeless refuge with her children, worked her way back and launched what has become A24 Group, a healthcare recruitment agency in 1995. By 2002, this hard-working woman’s company was the “fastest-growing company in the UK” and in 2019, she was listed as being worth £208 million in The Sunday Times ‘Rich List.’ Streeter and her husband now own a vineyard in South Africa and a winery in Horsham, West Sussex. We say: Cheers to her!
Manhattan mansion listed for 77% less than in 2014 as part of a “bankruptcy sale;” it is situated on a street featured in Billy Joel’s ‘Close to the Borderline’ that was once termed: “Bloody, Bloody Beekman Place: Where the Wealthy Wind Up Dead”
On 10th April 1936, Good Friday, a writer named Nancy Titterton was found dead in her bathtub at the home she shared with her husband at 22 Beekman Place in Manhattan. She had been raped and strangled by an upholsterer’s assistant, John Fiorenza, who had ironically repaired a loveseat for the couple. The case of the ‘Beauty in the Bathtub’ ended with Fiorenza’s conviction and execution at Sing Sing on 22nd January 1937, but for Beekman Place this was not the first nor last murder.
Aside from the killing of Dr Fritz Gebhardt, an industrialist and associate of Hermann Göring, by his lover Vera Stretz in a hotel in the street on 12th November 1935, on 4th January 2015, a Princeton graduate named Tommy Gilbert, Jr. shot his financier father in the head at his apartment at 20 Beekman Place. Prior to committing the murder, after a row about his monthly allowance, the 30-year old had sent his mother out to buy him a can of Coca Cola and a sandwich. As a result of these series of slayings, in January 2015, the Daily Beast ran an article about the street with the headline: “Bloody, Bloody Beekman Place: Where the Wealthy Wind Up Dead.”
The naked body of 33-year-old Nancy Titterton was discovered in her bathtub at 22 Beekman Place on 10th April 1936; “Pampered Ivy-leaguer” Tommy Gilbert, Jr. was sentenced to 30 years to life in jail in September 2019 for murdering his father, Thomas Gilbert, Sr. in his apartment at 20 Beekman Place in January 2015.Owners of 29 Beekman Place – Mary Lasker, William S. Paley and Princess Ashraf Pahlavi.
Now, for altogether different reasons, the street – whose more ‘happy’ residents have included variously not just the Second Lady of the United States, Happy Rockefeller, but also Prince Aly Khan and A&P supermarket heir Huntington Hartford – Beekman Place is making headlines once again.
Whilst the asking prices of properties are often reduced, the case of 22 Beekman Place is an extreme one. Built in 1934 for William S. Paley, the man who “turned CBS from a small radio network into the foremost radio and television network in the United States,” and owned subsequently by a philanthropist and then the twin sister of the Shah of Iran, the house was placed for sale for the plainly extremely over-ambitious sum of £40.2 million in February 2014.
In the period since, the nine floor, 12,260 square foot “trophy mansion| has yo-yoed on and off the market and now after being listed as a “BANKRUPTCY SALE!! Excellent Value – Price Reduced to Sell!!” has just reappeared for ‘just’ £9.2 million.
Described by Curbed New York as having “truly lovely architectural details” and an oval-shaped dining room that has been frequented by “heads of states and foreign dignitaries from all over the world,” the red brick and limestone property has 10 bedrooms and 9 bathrooms. Additionally, it includes 1,500 square foot of outdoor space in the form of two private terraces, a chef’s kitchen, a wine cellar, a lift and a banquet hall.
Agents Compass laud 29 Beekman Place as being “designed with grand scale entertaining in mind” and suggest it “appropriate for a private mansion, live/work, a foundation, or an ideal consulate or diplomat residence.” They add: “Do not miss this opportunity to purchase a piece of New York history,” (but unsurprisingly don’t mention any of the infamous murders in the neighbouring buildings).
The Names & Numbers – 29 Beekman Place, Midtown East, Manhattan, New York, NY 10022, United States of America
April 2020 – Relisted for £9.22 million ($11.45 million, €10.58 million or درهم42.05 million) through Compass as a “bankruptcy sale.”
September 2019 – Relisted for £11.7 million ($14.5 million, €13.4 million or درهم53.3 million) through Compass.
October 2017 – Relisted for £22.5 million ($28 million, €25.9 million or درهم102.8 million) through Sotheby’s International Realty.
January 2016 – Relisted for £27.4 million ($34 million, €31.4 million or درهم124.9 million).
May 2015 – Relisted for £30.2 million ($37.5 million, €34.7 million or درهم137.7 million) through Douglas Elliman.
February 2014 – Listed for £40.2 million ($49.9 million, €46.2 million or درهم183.3 million) through Brown Harris Stevens.
Mid 1970s – Sold to Princess Ashraf Pahlavi (1919 – 2016), the twin sister of the Shah of Iran.
1940s – After Mr and Mrs Paley divorced, the house was first rented to and then bought by the philanthropist Mary Woodward Lasker (1900 – 1994). She lived there with her second husband, advertising executive Albert Lasker (1940 – 1952), and remained there after his death until circa 1975.
1934 – Built for the “notorious womaniser” and first CEO of Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), William S. Paley (1901 – 1990) and his first wife Dorothy Hart Hearst (ex-wife of John Randolph Hearst).
Born in Alabama in 1982, Jessica Jackson Sloan has morphed from a high-school dropout with a baby and a drug addict, jailbird husband in 2004 to, most bizarrely, one half of a “criminal justice reform dream team” with Kim Kardashian in 2020. “Steely-eyed blonde,” divorced and the co-founder of #Cut50 – a bipartisan effort aimed at reducing America’s incarceration rate – this Santa Clara University of Law graduate became Mayor of Mill Valley City Council in Marin County, California in 2015 and got herself involved with her “famous reality star legal apprentice” thanks to Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Jackson Sloan claims to want to “craft better policies that help, not hurt,” yet the choice of the somewhat shady company she keeps will continue to leave many questioning this plainly fame and power hungry woman’s true motivations.
Grade II* listed Cumbrian mansion built by opium dealer and once marketed for £1.5 million for sale for just £460,000; it was also the scene of the UK’s biggest ever cannabis raid in 2012
A 23,000 square foot, 52 room, mid-19th century Palladian mansion in the Westmorland Dales National Park is to be sold at auction – by order of the mortgagees not in possession – for £1 million less than it was marketed for in 2014. It is sadly now described as being in an utterly wrecked, vandalised condition.
The entrance elevation of the mansion then and now
The strikingly grand interiors of Flass (prior to visits from the ‘Urban Explorers’)
The completely trashed interiors of the mansion (after visits from the ‘Urban Explorers’)
Built in 1851 for wealthy merchant brothers and tea and opium magnets Lancelot and Wilkinson Dent, 8-bedroomed Flass at Maulds Meaburn, near Penrith in Cumbria was designed by architects Grey and Mair and includes furnishings by the renowned firm Gillows of Lancaster and London.
Opulent to its core and said to have featured marble fireplaces, ivory door handles and friezes with pearls, Flass remained in the Dent family until 1973. Just prior to being sold for £17,000 (the equivalent of £202,000 today) that year to a historian named Frank Walsh, the then owner Sir Robert Dent opened up an attic of the house and discovered items from the Mughal Empire that he then auctioned for the astounding sum of £220,000 (the equivalent of £2.6 million today).
Subsequently this vast stucco finished, limestone built house – complete with a Doric porte-cochère and a three-storey tower – became a care home and was then after sold in 2000 to a singer-songwriter best known for co-writing the creepy Christian crooner Sir Cliff Richard’s Devil Woman named Christine Holmes (also known as Kristine Sparkle) and her husband Paul Davies. The pair turned the property into a performing arts school.
After the couple divorced, Davies took control of the mansion but due to spiraling maintenance costs, he eventually got himself involved with a gang of drug dealers in 2011. Due to what rental agents at the time described as the house being “totally private and hidden away, with an unmatched seclusion and charm,” Davies and his five cohorts were able to grow cannabis with a street value of £5.26 million undetected until a neighbour became suspicious. He was jailed for his role in the crime for three years and eight months in September 2015.
Singer-songwriter Christine Holmes outside Flass in September 2017 (after visits from the ‘Urban Explorers’ and their having trashed her home)
Paul Davies turned Flass into Britain’s biggest cannabis farm (and got himself three years and eight months in jail for his efforts; on his conviction his representative said: “He blames nobody but himself for getting involved in this criminal business”)
The “massive scale” £5 million cannabis farm operated at Flass was described in court as “a professional setup” and having the “real hallmarks of organised crime”
Christine Holmes subsequently took back control of Flass and after trying and failing to sell the house for £1.5 million spent £200,000 on renovations to put right the damage done by the drug operation. Her bad luck, however, was not to end there. In September 2017, the Cumberland & Westmorland Herald reported that a gang of ‘Urban Explorers’ had raided the somewhat derelict building and filmed their exploits. In the weeks that followed, trespassers returned at least twelve further times and “ransacked and trashed” the once glorious residence. She told the paper:
“I was absolutely horrified when I saw [videos of the house] online. I couldn’t believe how anyone could come into my home and believe it was an abandoned building.”
“I think since then people have been staying in the building and have even been there hiding while I’ve been there. I’m petrified. These are evil people who are breaking into my home. I think it’s becoming a game to them. They are breaking in every day.”
Auctioneers Harman Healy will now offer Grade II* listed Flass along with 17.5 acres of overgrown grounds with a guide price of just £460,000+ on 30th January. Christine Holmes no doubt will be glad if she finally gets shot of what she likely ended up considering to be the worst kind of white elephant.
Flass – The Numbers
January 2019 – To be offered at auction with a guide price of just £460,000 ($596,000, €525,000 or درهم2.2 million).
July 2014 – Offered for sale for £1.5 million ($1.9 million, €1.7 million or درهم7.1 million).
2000 – Sold for £490,000 ($635,000, €559,000 or درهم2.3 million) to the currently jailed drug dealer Paul Davies and his then wife songwriter Christine Holmes.
1998 – Reduced to £650,000 ($842,000, €741,000 or درهم3.1 million).
1997 – For sale for £750,000 ($972,000, €855,000 or درهم3.6 million).
1982 – Sold for £115,000 ($149,000, €131,000 or درهم547,000) to a retired solicitor named Malcolm Whiteside. He turned Flass into a care home which he ran with his wife Mary.
1973 – Sold by Sir Robert Dent, a descendant of the family who built the house, for £17,000 ($22,000, €19,000 or درهم81,000) to a historian named Frank Welsh.
That Heather Mills has returned to the public eye is nothing but awful; please could someone just send her to Siberia?
When one thought the worst was over and one of Britain’s most loathed women had finally gone away, that woman just had to stick her oar in yet again.
Yesterday, The Sunday Times reported that Heather Mills (formerly Lady McCartney) – a woman who pompously claims to possess “an inert ability to defy and conquer anything that falls in her path” on her “official website” – now wants to be “Britain’s vegan queen.”
Sharing news that Mills – a woman best known for chucking a jug of water over Baroness Shackleton during her divorce from the equally annoying old crooner and vegetarian diet enthusiast Sir Paul McCartney – is to open Britain’s largest vegan food factory in a former Walkers Crisps factory, the paper revealed that this inelegant harpy “wants to make the north-east a centre for vegan food production – a vegan valley.”
In the article Mills – renowned for her bad temper and for once having screamed: “You bitch, you bitch” at the technical head of the International Paralympic Committee – also declared: “The big market is flexitarian – people who eat meat, fish and dairy but who want to cut back or who want the chance to try vegan or veggie food… It’s like taking someone over a bridge to help wean them off meat.”
Mills’ unimaginatively named company, Vbites, offers such hideous sounding products as ‘coconut cheese’ and ‘cholesterol free, meat free chorizo chunks’ on its website. We doubt, like ‘Harridan Heather’ herself, they’ll ever catch on.
