Tiny, overpriced studio ‘flatlet’ lacking room to even swing a cat in somewhat ‘shady’ building opposite Harrods in Knightsbridge unsurprisingly remains on sale for the not so tiny sum of £250,000 after 3 years on the market reports Matthew Steeples
Prison cell-like 109 square foot ‘flatlet’ in Brompton Road, Knightsbridge for sale for staggering £250,000; national minimum allowable size for a flat since 2011 is 398 square foot.
Brompton Road is one of London’s most polluted roads; the Brompton Oratory, one of the highway’s main landmarks, was used as a ‘dead letter drop box’ by Soviet spies during the Cold War.
Nearby now defunct Brompton Road London Underground station became the control centre for the 26th(London) Anti-Aircraft Brigade during the Second World War.
Ritzy department store Harrods, directly opposite, stands on a 5 acre site and was sold to the Qatar Investment Authority for £1.5 billion by alleged abuser of 200 women Mohamed Al-Fayed in 2010.
Listed initially at £275,000 in December 2022 but now slashed to a still stupendous £250,000 after failing to get flogged, Grow Portfolio estate agents are hawking a minute and clearly overpriced 109 square foot studio flat in Brompton Road, Knightsbridge as a “fantastic base” and “excellent opportunity”. If the ask price were to be achieved, the vendor would earn themselves a very punchy return of £2,294 per square foot; the median average price for this part of London, SW3 has been a significantly lower £1,610 per square foot during 2025.
Offered on a lease of approximately 169 years and having a service charge of “approximately’ £1,000 per annum to include the assistance of a 24-hour concierge, a buyer will garner themselves a single room measuring 6 feet by 11’9” feet with a small adjoining shower room also. The 70 square foot room itself has tiled flooring, a window, a cupboard housing a microwave and cooking hob and a minute fold-down table also. There’s frankly nowt much else to say about it further than in November, the Evening Standard lauded its décor for being a “clinical white” achromatic scheme.
A floor plan shows the very limited scope of the accommodation offered. Tax dodging tennis legend Boris Becker produced a son after a ‘bonk’ in a broom cupboard at the Metropolitan Hotel; given his size now, he might struggle with such activity in this space today.It’s rare that a property can be entirely shown with just a single photo; in this case, it most definitely can.In this watercolour by Cyril Farey (1888 – 1954), which Manning Fine Art describe as “capturing Princes Court at its prime”, the golden era of a building is shown. The art dealers observe: “[This] is not merely an architectural drawing it is expressing a lifestyle that only an apartment in Princes Court can provide. As such the fashionable and modern apartment block is surrounded by a Mediterranean blue sky and Hyde Park peaks out from the sides as an Eden of lush green. The smart street is punctuated by smart, friendly, yellow awnings whilst classic, stylish cars and iconic London buses pass by.” The same cannot sadly be said of the setting today given this part of Brompton Road has become better known for housing hookers, Rolex robberies and chronic pollution.
Designed to “resemble an ocean liner” by architect George Valentine Myer (1883 – 1959) between 1934 and 1935, the building in which the studio flat is to be found, Princes Court at 88 Brompton Road, SW3 1ES, was originally named Knight’s Court. This large steel-framed block of 94 flats with 9 retail premises on the ground and first floors directly opposite Harrods began life as “a popular and exclusive place to live”, but in recent years has become more commonly used for Airbnbs and by ‘ladies (and gents) of a certain profession of the night’.
Of the apartment complex, a past resident complained to The Steeple Times: “I did not live there long as I could not even open the windows in the summer due to the pollution and traffic noise from supercars revving in the summer on the Brompton Road. The ‘bedroom banging activity’ from my clearly-a-hooker neighbour did not help me sleep at night either.”
No-longer-so-ritzy Princes Court previously hit the headlines in 2012 when an 84 square foot studio flat went on sale for £89,950, in 2021 when a 128 square foot offering sold for £325,000 and in 2022 when an 88 square foot studio – in spite of lacking even a lavatory and without any kind kitchen – was auctioned with a guide price of £175,000. A two bedroomed flat extending to 877 square feet on the ninth floor of the building is currently being touted by Harrods Estates at a guide price of £1.3 million.
Given the spoof website supporting the homeless charity Shelter that is the National Institute of Feline Orbital Studies (NIFOS) calculates that 78.54 square foot is required to swing an ‘average’ cat and that it would cost £158,180 to “buy enough space to swing a cat in SW3”, the 109 square foot flat offered by Grow Portfolio has not only not enough room to swing a cat, but would not even adhere to the government’s technical housing standards if it were a new build property. The minimum today required to meet regulations is 398 square foot, meaning that this poxy pad falls 72% short of that sum; these regulations do not apply to buildings constructed prior to 2011.
Fair warning to whoever purchases this ‘flatlet’ suitable only for someone seriously slim: In February 1988, an actual broom cupboard measuring 5’6” feet by 11 feet “with not even a cooker” in Princes Court sold for £36,500 (the equivalent of £102,500 today) during what Pete May termed an “obscene property boom” in his 2012 book Rent Boy. The self-professed “punk-turned-journalist who spent 20 years falling off the property ladder’ added: “Even I wouldn’t live in that. Yet it was recommended as a purchase for ‘those who like eating out’.”
Within months of the cupboard sale, the economy tanked and studio flats, given their limited appeal, were the very first properties to see their values plummet. In 2025, with Rachel Reeves ‘Queen of Thieves’ having her grubby mitts on the nation’s tiller, this is probably not the time to be shelling out £250,000 for what the “honest estate agent” and Brothel in Pimlico author Roy Brooks would have likely marketed as a ‘broom cupboard in a brothel building in Knightsbridge’. At this time, perhaps, ‘buyer best beware’ would better be borrowed.
Curious facts about Brompton Road
The area of ‘Brompton’ dates to the 15th century and originates from the name ‘Brokendon’ – meaning “a place near a brook”.
The road itself starts at Knightsbridge Underground station and ends at the crossroad intersection known as ‘Brompton Cross’ where Fulham Road begins. It is thought to have ‘officially’ first been designated as ‘Brompton Road’ in 1863 on land originally owned by the Moreaus, a wealthy French Huguenot family.
Brompton Road is one of London’s most polluted highways due to heavy traffic, especially from diesel vehicles. In 2013, the London Assembly claimed pedestrians were being “showered in dangerous airborne particles” on this road identified as having NO2 levels massively exceeding World Health Organization guidelines.
Between 1906 and 1934, passengers on the Piccadilly London Underground line were able to alight at Brompton Road tube station. It was closed due to being surprisingly little used, but served as the command centre of the 26th (London) Anti-Aircraft Brigade during the Second World War. During this period, the tunnels, subways and lift-shafts were adapted to provide bomb-proof accommodation and in 2014, the site was sold to Dmytro Firtash, a billionaire Ukrainian businessman for £53 million. His plans to convert the 28,000 square foot site into residential accommodation have still not come to fruition.
The best-known retail landmark on Brompton Road is Harrods department store. It stands on a site that covers an astounding 5 acres in total and includes 1.1 million square feet of retailing space.
Famous customers of the store, which first opened in its present form in 1894, have included Agatha Christie, Beatrix Potter, Oscar Wilde and Asma al-Assad, the wife of the former President of Syria. She used an alias to shop there in order to get around European Union sanctions that froze the assets of her and her husband.
In 1898, Harrods debuted Britain’s first ‘moving staircase’ (or what we now term an ‘escalator’). At the top, “nervous” customers were offered brandy to revive them from the “ordeal” of their ride, The Drapers’ Record reported at the time.
Harrods was bombed by the IRA in 1983 and 1993. The first attack killed 6 people and the second injured 4.
The store was bought by the now late alleged serial sex offender Mohamed Al-Fayed in 1985. The ‘Phony Pharaoh’, as the Egyptian was nicknamed, is said to have abused at least 200 women on the premises during his ownership. He sold the business to the Qatar Investment Authority for an astounding £1.5 billion in 2010 and died in 2023 without ever having been brought to justice.
In 2022, Apple opened a store on the road in what was once the Brompton Arcade. It is staffed by over 200 employees, or as the tech giant prefers to call them – team members.
Another major landmark, and a building like Harrods complete with a dome, is the Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This Catholic parish church is better known as the Brompton Oratory and also referenced as the London Oratory.
Consecrated in 1884, the church was where ‘Master of Suspense’ Sir Alfred Hitchcock married Alma Reville in 1933 and it is said to have inspired Nick Cave to write the song Brompton Oratory in 1997.
During the Cold War, this ornately decorated church was used as a ‘dead letter drop’ (or ‘DLD’ to those in the know) by Soviet agents in Britain. Spies would visit the church and place documents and microfilm behind one of the pillars for later collection by their compatriots; the location suited given the building’s proximity to the Russian embassy and as Harrods was a suitable rabbit warren for losing a tail if they thought they were being followed.
Standing behind the Brompton Oratory and accessed from Brompton Road is Holy Trinity Church, Brompton. ‘HTB Brompton’, as it is now generally referenced, stands on a site of 3.5 acres and is now one of the primary sites for the teaching of the Alpha course programme that focuses on “the evangelization of the nations, the revitalization of the church and the transformation of society.’
Further photographs of the £250,000 Princes Court flatlet
The kitchen facilities would not exactly excite Gordon Ramsay.The shower room is modern and clean; there’s not much further to say further than that.Both the shower room and ‘studio’ room have windows; a ‘Brucie bonus’ for sure.A view of the ‘studio’ towards the door; most prison cells are bigger than the space offered here.If you bought the studio offered and needed to host a visitor, you could do so in the lobby of Princes Court. It’s got seating and space aplenty in comparison to the ‘flatlet’ itself.Princes Court (here partly shrouded in scaffolding) is literally opposite Harrods, undoubtedly one of the most famous department stores in the world.The rear of Princes Court with Harrods department store behind and the store’s former depository, now apartments also, to the right.
WORLD EXCLUSIVE – Ghislaine Maxwell’s notorious London home –the very pad that caused Prince Andrew to pay out £12 million over sexual cavorting allegations relating to a “bathtub bonk” in 2001 – is astoundingly back up for sale for a bonkers sum nearly 100% higher than she ‘sold’ it for just 3 years ago; much of the mucky madam’s furniture bizarrely remains
Just as the meddling mate of the mendacious mucky madam and her pension pot plundering papa that is Peter Mandelson has been ‘anointed’ in Game of Thrones style as Keir Starmer’s ambassador to the United States of America, it can be revealed that the infamous former London home of Ghislaine Maxwell is back on the market.
Whilst properties, however sordid their histories, come up for sale now and again – for example, when we featured five of the worst ‘murder location houses’ offered for sale in November 2022, we were inundated with further suggestions – the totally unsurprising detail in the current Chestertons listing for 44 Kinnerton Street, Belgravia is that there is no mention of this mews house’s infamous past owner-occupier.
Interestingly, however, the agency’s ‘current’ photographs of what The Steeple Times mocked in January 2022 as “Randy Andy’s Bathtub Bonk Pad” – given what allegedly went on between the Duke of York and a then 17-year-old then going by the name Virginia Roberts in the first-floor, full-sized bathtub of the residence on the 10th March 2001 – show a property that still includes free-standing furnishings that were present when representatives of the then incarcerated Miss Maxwell sold on 19th April 2021 for £1.75 million against a far more punchy initial asking price of £2.6 million. Indeed, it does seem most curious that the ‘purchasers’ decided to keep a set of naff 1970s tables and chairs that presumably belonged to the convicted sex trafficker – especially given they decided to throw out an equally gaudy pair of velvet curtains from the house that have now ended up on display in a Bristol art gallery as part of exhibition of all sorts of odd things that is rather appropriately titled Grey Unpleasant Land.
In January 2022, ‘The Steeple Times’ was the first publication to share a photograph of the then unrenovated bathroom at 44 Kinnerton Street where Prince Andrew and Virginia Roberts (now Virginia Giuffre) allegedly bonked in the tub. The image we shared (top) provided proof that the tub was of a standard size and not “too small for any kind of activity whatsoever,” as Ghislaine Maxwell had stated during a 2015 defamation civil case brought after Maxwell called Giuffre a liar. The case was settled in 2017 in favour of Virginia Giuffre and at that time Ghislaine Maxwell was forced to pay damages. The same bathroom photographed in 2024 (bottom). The flooring and fittings all remain; the tiles have been changed, as have the bath taps.When asked about what occurred on the night of 10th March 2001 in the first-floor bathroom at her Kinnerton Street mews house, Ghislaine Maxwell responded: “[Virginia Roberts] then characterized [sic] things took place in my bathroom in the bathtub itself. The tub is too small for any kind of activity whatsoever.” The picture of that very same tub used in marketing material by Wellbelove Quested and more recently Chestertons proved exactly to the contrary.A floor plan shared by the likes ‘The Daily Mail’ and ‘The Sun suggested the first-floor bathroom at 44 Kinnerton Street to be 7-foot, 4 inches by 7-foot, 2-inches. Floor plans shared by Wellboved Quested suggested that the room is actually 8-foot, 4-inches by 8-foot, 2-inches. Either way, there was most definitely plenty of room for two (and whatever activities might have gone on between that particular two-some)…Then and Now – The ground floor reception room of the house (top) as it was in “doctor’s waiting room” style in January 2022 (top) and as it now is in December 2024 (bottom) opened up to the kitchen. Note that though a wall and fitted furnishings have been removed and the flooring replaced, the somewhat naff dining table and chairs remain.
Laughably lauded by Chestertons as “charming” and “wonderfully bright,” the 1,477 square foot three-storey building has admittedly been knocked around a bit during the current ownership. Gone is a clapped-out kitchen that grubby groper Ghislaine likely never cooked her vegan nosh in and gone also is the wall between that room and the adjoining former “dentist’s waiting room-style” reception room where Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein’s London victims were likely lined-up for the vilest forms of sexual abuse. Also replaced are the fittings in the primary bathroom in what would have been the ‘Mucky Madam Master Suite’ on the top floor, but what is beyond bizarre is that the house’s most horrid bit of history survives for posterity virtually intact. The very same first floor full-sized bathroom where sexual relations allegedly occurred that caused Prince Andrew to allegedly pay £12 million to the aforementioned Virginia Roberts Giuffre (without any admission of guilt) remains virtually unaltered.
In that very bathroom, next to the very landing where the ‘killer’ photograph of Miss Maxwell, Miss Roberts and the late Queen Elizabeth’s favourite son were so inconveniently snapped on 10th March 2001, the very same full-sized shower and the very same full-sized bathtub that The Steeple Times proved Ghislaine Maxwell lied about during her April 2016 deposition at the law offices of Boies Schiller & Flexner in New York in an article we published in January 2022 remains in-situ. Yes, the walls have been retiled and the taps have been changed, but every other element of the room’s grotty days of old remain as a kind of Miss Havisham-esque horror memorial.
When asked during the videotaped and subsequently transcribed 2016 deposition, which was given before one Leslie Fagin, a court reporter and notary public in the State of New York, about the photograph and sexual activities in the first-floor bathroom, Maxwell went full ‘porky-pie’ about her ‘standard’ five-foot-six-inches length bathtub and snapped:
“What I’m representing is that [Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s] entire ludicrous and absurd story of what took place in my house is an obvious lie… She claimed things took place in my bathroom in London. Her characterizations [sic] is just not possible… She then characterized things took place in my bathroom itself. The tub is too small for any type of activity whatsoever.”
Clearly buyers are not flocking to purchase a pad of which Maxwell lied about and one of which Loyd Grossman might ask: “Who the hell would want to pay £3.45 million to live in a pugnacious pad like this?” In spite of spending less than a month on the market, Ghislaine Maxwell’s former lair – complete with its historical bonking bathtub – has just had its price slashed by a not-so-insubstantial £200,000 to ‘just’ £3.25 million.
Then and Now – The somewhat decrepit kitchen, as it was in January 2022 (top), and as it now is, after being opened into the adjoining reception room (bottom) in December 2024.Then and Now – The ‘Mucky Madam Maxwell Suite’ at the top of the house as it was in January 2022 (top) and now is (bottom) in December 2024.The house under renovation in July 2021 and November 2023.The curtains binned during the renovations were featured in a review by ‘The Guardian’ in November 2024 of a new exhibition that debuted at the Spike Island gallery in Bristol. Amongst the items shown in ‘Grey Unpleasant Land’ are a set of sun-bleached red velvet curtains. Of them, the paper’s Evan Moffitt observed: “Described as having been acquired from the 2020 clearance of 44 Kinnerton Street, Belgravia. A Google search will tell you that the house belonged to Ghislaine Maxwell, convicted associate of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. It’s understandable why the artists chose not to name her, though without the extra effort, the drapes are a mysterious stage prop. Throughout, the show poses questions about how objects accrue value and meaning, which often comes down to how much or how little they’re framed. Maxwell is very much the elephant in the room alongside items from the same class as the person she set up with underage girls.” One could instead argue that it is curtains for sanity in Britain when Ghislaine Maxwell’s stained curtains are considered worthy as “art exhibits.”A floor plan of 44 Kinnerton Street prior to the renovations that came after the April 2021 sale.A floor plan of the house illustrating the changes to the ground floor layout.In July 2021, ‘The Steeple Times’ shared an image of an open door at 44 Kinnerton Street when the house was undergoing external repainting. The bannister pictured clearly is exactly the same one featured in the March 2001 image of Prince Andrew, Virginia Roberts and Ghislaine Maxwell on the first-floor landing of the property.In 2019, Shaun Attwood of ‘Shaun Attwood’s True Crime Channel’ interviewed a lady who answered the door at 44 Kinnerton Street. In the footage he subsequently uploaded to YouTube, the bannister is again seen still in-situ.
Late December 2024 – £200,000 is slashed off the listing price of the property, taking the asking price to £3.25 million ($4.09 million, €3.92 million or درهم15 million), a sum 86% higher than the April 2021 selling price.
Early December 2024 – 44 Kinnerton Street is again listed for sale, this time by Chestertons. It is priced at £3.45 million ($4.34 million, €4.16 million or درهم15.94 million), a sum 97% higher than the April 2021 selling price, but is now available on a freehold instead of leasehold basis.
18th November 2023 – The Sun’s Jane Matthews reported that 44 Kinnerton Street was “getting a major revamp” and was “covered in scaffolding.” Matthews suggested “the new owners” were thought to be a developer and quoted a management accountant named Wendy Howard, “who has worked on Kinnerton Street for ten years,” as saying: “I know [representatives of Maxwell] sold the property fairly quickly and for a discount. I’m surprised, it’s not really the type of house anyone would want to buy. It really has the wrong associations. Personally, I thought the whole situation was seedy and very disappointing… You do see some tourist groups going past, but it’s not very well known that Maxwell used to live around here. Sometimes you see people filming or making documentaries, so sometimes people ask about the house, but not too often.”
19th October 2022 – The MailOnline’s Stewart Carter reported that “locals refuse to talk about the black spot on their street” in an article that also suggested the house “has not been lived in since Maxwell sold it… to pay her legal fees in 2021” and added: “It is collecting cobwebs and dust as locals grow increasingly frustrated about its eerie past.” Maxwell’s ‘friend’ – who was meant, but ultimately did not give in evidence in her trial, Kevin Moran, was referenced also. He stated: “It’s all investment – nobody lives here.”
14th January 2022 – Property website TheMoveMarket.com values the house at £2.11 million ($2.88 million, €2.53 million or درهم9.75 million), a sum 19% lower than the current asking price for the unrenovated property.
January 2022 – Estate agents Wellbelove Quested offer the mews house for £2.6 million ($3.6 million, €3.1 million or درهم1 million), an extraordinary increase of 49% on the sale price just 270 days earlier. The house is offered on a lease of 127 years that commenced on 24th June 2014 and previously on their website Wellbelove Quested had marketed the house for a higher price of £2.75 million ($3.738 million, €3.283 million or درهم13.731 million).
July 2021 – The Steeple Times reports on repainting work to the outside of the house being underway. An open door reveals the infamous staircase bannister to still be in-situ.
19th April 2021 – Records confirm the house to have been sold for £1.75 million ($2.39 million, €2.09 million or درهم79 million). Details about the beneficiary of the sum from this sale are not publicly available.
March 2021 – Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyer offered cash from the “pending sale of her £1.45 million ($2 million, €1.74 million or درهم28 million)” home as part of a package when they sought bail for the mucky madam for a third time, the Daily Mail reported. This sum was 44% lower than the September 2020 asking price and 400% higher than the January 1997 purchase price.
March 2021 – A Knightsbridge estate agent told The Steeple Times: “Knowing the street as I do, 44 is one of the smaller houses which I assume it to be a little over 1,000 square foot in size. Depending on the condition, I estimate the freehold value to be circa £1.8 million to £2 million ($2.5 million to $2.7 million, €2.2 million to €2.4 million or 9درهم million to درهم10 million).”
December 2020 – Members of the Maxwell family attempted to raise finance on the property but are not successful, The Steeple Times learns from a financier with connections to the Maxwell family and their representatives. They were rejected on the basis of the “toxicity” of their familial name.
September 2020 – Estate agents Aylesford list 44 Kinnerton Street for sale for £2.6 million ($3.6 million, €3.1 million or درهم1 million) on (it was claimed) a freehold basis, a sum 797% than the January 1997 purchase price. They subsequently later reduce the asking price to £2.1 million ($2.9 million, €2.5 million or درهم10.5 million) “according to a leading property expert.”
August 2019 – According to Insider, a woman with “long hair [who] appeared to be in her 60s” was seen entering the property. She “denied that the socialite owns or lived in the house, claiming instead that the elusive socialite lived elsewhere down the street.”
10th March 2001 – Prince Andrew allegedly had sexual relations with 17-year-old Virginia Roberts in a bathroom in the property. He continues to deny this occurred whilst claiming that a photograph of himself with Miss Roberts and Ghislaine Maxwell on the first floor of building is a fake also.
22nd January 1997 – Ghislaine Maxwell paid £290,000 ($396,000, €347,000 or درهم5 million) for the three-storey leasehold mews house. It is situated at the heart of the Duke of Westminster’s Grosvenor Estate.
1989 to 1995 – Ghislaine Maxwell is known to have resided at 69 Stanhope Mews East, South Kensington, London, SW7 5QT. Her father bought it for her two years before his mysterious death and she reportedly “groomed and befriended Minor Victim 3 in London, England, between approximately 1994 and 1995… Maxwell introduced Minor Victim 3 to Epstein and during those interactions, Maxwell encouraged Minor Victim 3 to massage Epstein, knowing that Epstein would engage in sex acts with Minor Victim 3. During those massages, Epstein sexually abused Minor Victim 3” at that very property. It was sold for £267,000 ($365,000, €320,000 or درهم3 million) on 15th March 1995 and then again for £1.75 million ($2.39 million, €2.10 million or درهم8.77 million) on 30th August 2019.
Further images of the house (as presented in December 2024) illustrate internal redecoration has occurred, but that not much has been done with the external roof terrace…
THAT 2001 Photo STILL NOT PROVEN A FAKE – The 10th March 2001 photograph of Prince Andrew, Virginia Roberts and Ghislaine Maxwell at 44 Kinnerton Street, Belgravia
The photograph, taken supposedly by Jeffrey Epstein on the first-floor landing at 44 Kinnerton Street, Belgravia, London, SW1X 8ES, United Kingdom, has been shared by the world’s media in hundreds of thousands of articles and analysed countless times by countless experts.
In November 2019, the Daily Mail’s Inderdeep Bains called it: “The photograph that WON’T go away” and it, as of date, has NEVER been discredited. Amongst evidence suggesting it to be perfectly real is that:
The setting of the photograph has been confirmed as genuine by the Maxwell family. Of it, in March 2021, Ian Maxwell told Radio 4’s Today programme: “I do recognise that setting.”
The window in the picture has the same features as the front first floor windows of 44 Kinnerton Street.
The width of the first floor landing is accurate to the measurements shown in the floor plan of the sales brochure prepared on the 14th October 2021 by estate agents Wellbelove Quested.
Though he claimed to be “at a loss to explain this particular photograph” during the 2019 BBC interview, the Duke of York has admitted to having visited 44 Kinnerton Street. He stated: “I don’t think I think ever went upstairs… The dining room and everything was on the ground floor.” Contradicting the royal, sources have claimed that the room behind him, Roberts and Maxwell in the photograph was used as a sitting room.
The heights of all three individuals in the picture look to be accurate proportionately.
Prince Andrew’s “chubby fingers” are clear to see. The Queen’s second son’s fingers are clearly “chubby fingers” and these very same “chubby fingers” have been seen hundreds of thousands of times in hundreds of thousands of other photographs.
Prince Andrew has claimed he only ever goes out in London in a suit and tie. Images of him in open necked shirts in the capital – including one of him leaving the nightclub Chinawhite – prove to the contrary.
Prince Andrew has claimed he does not “do” hugs and and embraces in photographs. Images of him taken in St Tropez embracing the US socialite Chris Von Aspen in July 2007 suggest the alleged non-sweater is wrong also on that score.
The outfit worn by Virginia Roberts – a woman who has already received financial settlements from Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell – has been seen on her in photographs of her at Naomi Campbell’s 2001 birthday party in France. In spite of some suggestions that a lady only wears an outfit once, we counter that a lady in Miss Roberts’ unfortunate situation would be forced to wear what she was told appealed to those in control of her wished her to wear.
Matthew Steeples of The Steeple Times and Shaun Attwood of Shaun Attwood’s True Crime Channel have both seen inside 44 Kinnerton Street and the stair rail shown in the photo remains in place and is thus genuine to the setting. Attwood subsequently released film footage of this on his YouTube channel and The Steeple Times shared its most recent image of the open front door with the stair rail beyond in July 2021.
Many experts have repeatedly stated photo manipulation was in its infancy at the time that this image first surfaced.
The FBI have never questioned the authenticity of the image.
The TRUE FAKE PHOTO – The August 2019 photograph of Ghislaine Maxwell at an In-N-Out Burger restaurant
It must be remembered that the now convicted mucky madam sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell was likely involved in leaking that infamous “too perfect” photoshopped image of herself at an In-N-Out Burger restaurant in Los Angeles in August 2019. Aside from this wicked woman – whom bangs on about being vegan constantly now – “planting herself for a double-double” burger, that image was subsequently debunked by The Cut. For them, Bridget Read stated:
“The intrepid Daily Mail checked out the location of the burger joint in Hollywood where Maxwell was allegedly spotted by a regular last week and found some odd discrepancies. Notably, a bus stop in the background of the shot shows an advertisement for the movie Good Boys – which the company that operates the ad space said has never been there. The bus stop currently displays an ad for a local hospital, which it says has been there since July 28. Maxwell was supposedly photographed at the In-N-Out on August 12.”
“Questions about Maxwell’s lunch outing have fed into the already robust set of conspiracy theories around Epstein, his high-profile acquaintances, and his death. Why was a second smartphone on the In-N-Out table? Why did Maxwell never stick a straw in either her soda or her shake? Why did the diner who supposedly photographed her have such a nice camera, with a lens that took a very clear photo? It doesn’t help that the In-N-Out employees at that location have been forbidden, supposedly by their employer, to talk about Maxwell’s visit.”
“If [family friend and attorney Leah] Saffian did indeed leak the photo of Maxwell, it was likely to try and throw the FBI off her scent… If the In-N-Out photo is indeed doctored, Maxwell could be anywhere and could show up anywhere she pleases. What’s next? Some predictions: eating a hot dog on the steps of the Met, posing with a cactus at Joshua Tree, riding a unicycle at Burning Man, or painting her nails on the C train.”
Tardis-like hidden house in Knightsbridge once home to ‘airhead’ Donna Air – who once amusingly asked The Corrs: “Where did you all meet?” – for sale for £14.5 million (or 383% more than it was ‘worth’ in 2003)
Update, Thursday 4th April 2024 – Internal images removed at insistence of Annabel Edney, associate PR, Savills.
The ‘cheap wing’ of one of Knightsbridge’s landmark churches, St Saviour’s, has gone on sale for a not-insubstantial sum of £14.5 million after the more ‘expensive wing’ was marketed for the very punchy sum of £55 million in 2019 and the still somewhat punchy sum of £44 million in 2020.
The deceptively Tardis-like Hastings House in Walton Street is a ‘blink-and-you’ll-miss-it’ home from the pavement. It is entered through a small door to the side of a church that was reduced in size to accommodate the vast 12,102 square foot St Saviour’s House and the new-build in 1999 property of 5,261 square foot now offered by agents Savills.
Actress and presenter Donna Air – who once hilariously asked the siblings that formed The Corrs: “Where did you all meet?” during an interview – numbers amongst the well-known ‘names’ to have lived in the house. This likeable lady shared the property with her wealthy conservationist then partner Damian Aspinall and even operated her even more hilariously named company (since dissolved) Airhead And Money Limited from the address.
Occupied also variously by a fast-living, Bugatti driving oil trader named Pierre Andurand and the controversial Italian sports manager Pierandrea Semeraro, the three-storey residence is centred around a “serene” private courtyard and includes 2 reception rooms, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and a rather impressive roof terrace.
Savills describe the freehold house as “opulent” and laud “one of the crowning jewels of the residence,” its underground pool, as a “hidden gem” in the basement; perhaps Sharon Corr and her siblings could hold a reunion there.
Actress and presenter Donna Air and conservationist Damian Aspinall with James Middleton – Air’s partner between 2013 and 2018 – and Victoria Fisher – whom Aspinall married in 2016. Aspinall and Air were an item between 2000 and 2007. Donna Air’s most famous moment on the telly box was summed up in an interview with Sharon Corr of the Celtic pop band The Corrs. Of the encounter, Corr stated: “We did a live television interview with Donna Air. Her opening question was: ‘So, where did you all meet?’ I looked at my brother and sisters and our hearts sank. If that was the opening question, it could only go downhill from there. It was clear that she knew absolutely nothing about us.”Oil trading tycoon Pierre Andurand and sports tycoon Pierandrea Semeraro have also both been listed at the address in Companies House records. How long each of the men lived at the property is unknown.
The Names & Numbers – Hastings House, Walton Place, Knightsbridge, London, SW3 1SA, United Kingdom
March 2024 – Offered for sale as an “ultra-cool freehold house” by William Duckworth-Chad and Alex Christian of Savills for £14.5 million ($18.3 million, €17 million or درهم67.2 million) – an asking price 123% higher than the asking price 20 years ago in March 2004 and 383% higher than the quoted worth in May 2003 – and described by Robb Report’s Abigail Montanez as a “stately London home hiding in plain sight… in the affluent Knightsbridge neighbourhood.”
April 2012 – Richard Compton Miller for The Standard bizarrely contradicts previous evidence and suggests Damian Aspinall and Donna Air “recently moved into [the] converted church.” It can only be assumed he was regurgitating somewhat outdated parish news.
April 2010 – Listed as the address of French “entrepreneur” Pierre Andurand on his appointment as a director of Andurand Events Limited company. The company ultimately was dissolved on 28th June 2011 after a compulsory strike-off.
Aixe-en-Provence born Mr Andurand is listed on Wikipedia as a “businessman and hedge fund manager” who was educated at the University of Oxford. This twice married “leader” of Andurand Capital has variously been listed as a “star trader,” an “oil trading wildcard” and someone who operates with “no set risk limits.” World Top Investors list this kickboxing enthusiast as “the comeback kid, the hotshot trader living the jock-bro dream, driving a Bugatti supercar, a Knightsbridge townhouse, and a trophy wife Russian model.”
23rd January 2007 – A planning application submitted by the Italian sports manager Pierandrea Semeraro concerning the property is approved.
Mr Semeraro is listed on Wikipedia as having been the president of the Sports Union Lecce from 2006 to 2010. He was subsequently banned and disqualified after an investigation into a football betting scandal.
November 2006 – Planning application submitted to make various alterations to Hastings House by a firm named Stanhope Gate including the addition of skylights.
April 2004 – Described by the Daily Mail’s Adam Helliker as being the “weekday… converted church” home where “daughter of a bus mechanic from Newcastle” who “has, by all accounts, rather taken to the life of luxury” Donna Air “busies herself with acting lessons, acupuncture, shiatsu and stints with her personal trainer.”
March 2004 – Featured once again by The Observer’s Ben Flanagan after going on sale for the far higher than he’d previously mentioned sum of £6.5 million ($8.2 million, €7.6 million or درهم30.1 million) through the rather ritzy realtors Aylesford.
Of it, Flanagan enthused:
“Behind a discreet doorway on an exclusive Knightsbridge street lies this 5,250 sq ft home, which the estate agent describes as ‘one of London’s hidden gems.’”
“You’d never guess the house was built in the 1990s as you wander through its elegant Italianate central courtyard to the neo-classical cloisters and drawing room. One clue, however, is the basement swimming pool and bar, which has a more modern – if a little Footballers’ Wives – look… ‘There’s an amazing ‘party pad’ feel to it,’ says a spokesman.”
May 2003 – Described by The Observer’s Ben Flanagan as worth £3 million ($3.8 million, €3.5 million or درهم13.9 million) in a feature that mentions it being the home of actress Donna Air and zoo owning tycoon Damian Aspinall.
28th July 2000 – Listed as the correspondence address of “presenter” Donna Air’s amusingly named “radio and television activities” company, Airhead And Money Limited. The company ultimately was dissolved on 1st March 2011 after a compulsory strike-off.
4th September 1998 – Full planning permission granted for the construction of Hastings House by the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea. Of the planning history of the unlisted property then to be constructed, the council noted separately: “The subject site was formerly included within the ground of the St Saviour’s Church, which is a listed building, however following planning permission which was granted in August 1997 for the erection of the subject building, the subject site has been formally renumbered in 2001 as Hastings House and is considered as a separate planning unit to St Saviours Church.”
Compact yet cosy, the main attraction here is a 22-foot length sitting room with an inglenook fireplace and bread oven at one end and a natural stone fireplace at the other. It also includes a kitchen with a Rangemaster oven, a study and would make an ideal Airbnb given its proximity to Glastonbury and its annual festival.
Another ‘chocolate box’ cottage comes in the form of Court Cottage – an 18th century detached property in a “highly regarded south Suffolk village” near Bury St Edmunds where one of Margaret Thatcher’s most trusted political advisers, David Hart, “lived-in-style” prior to his death in 2011.
Offered by Jackson-Stops, this 1,615 square foot thatched building includes 2 reception rooms, 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. It also has a “fabulous” dining kitchen, a garage with a room above, an electric car charging point and a lawned garden.
Curiously, the property has a “flying freehold” since the neighbour’s bathroom overhangs the property’s ground floor utility room and a “creeping freehold” since its cellar lies beneath the adjoining property’s living area.
Llangain, Dorstone, Herefordshire –£695,000 ($873,300, €800,500 or درهم3.2 million)
For the same sum, just 3.5 miles from the market town of Hay-on-Wye – famed as “the town of books” – this 18th century restored cottage on ½ acre is available freehold. It is situated close to the Golden Valley village of Dorstone – a settlement best known for its annual sloe gin competition where each year the winner is crowned the ‘Grand Master of the Sloes.’
Llangain, a farmhouse that was derelict from the First World War until 1995, itself has 4 bedrooms and in addition there is a 1-bedroom barn conversion. Agents Knight Frank laud the property as being in a “picturesque setting” and having “amazing views.”
Willow Cottage, Bethersden, Kent – £1.75 million ($2.20 million, €2.01 million or درهم8.07 million)
Situated in a village best known for producing rather ritzy rocking horses for everyone from the late Queen Elizabeth II to Sir Paul McCartney, Willow Cottage is being marketed by Strutt & Parker as having “evolved from the picturesque period cottage at its heart, and from which it derives its somewhat understated name” into an “elegant 4,800 square foot family house.”
Situated on a plot of 16.5 acres and last sold for £400,000 in July 1998, this 5-bedroomed residence comes with a separate 2-bedroomed ‘guest barn’ and also has a tennis court, a swimming pool, stabling, garaging, gardens and paddocks. A “picturesque pond” currently provides opportunity for Wind in the Willows-esque Messing About in a Boat, as our main photograph suggests.
EXCLUSIVE –As £668,000 is sliced off the price of Ghislaine Maxwell and Scott Borgerson’s former home (and an ‘open house’ is arranged at ‘Maxwell House’), here is a perfect outing for those that want to take a gander at such features as their sick ‘party shower’ this May
Ghislaine Maxwell, if truth be known, ain’t going anywhere. Confined to the clink for 20 years and likely facing action over her non-payment of around £3 million in legal bills owed to date, the mucky madam (and/or her ex-husband Scott Borgerson) has decided to cut the price of her former home in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts.
True crime fans will no doubt flock to the couple’s creepy crib that day and for them, most definitely, the highlight will be the chance to take a gander at a ‘party shower’ installed there. Of this bizarre ‘extra,’ in July 2019, a “pal” and neighbour told The Sun on Sunday: “The house did have one unusual feature – a huge shower. It had Wi-Fi so they could control it from their phones, a steam unit, the whole nine yards. It was like a party shower. You can imagine what they got up to in there.”
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.
One of the 5.3 bathrooms at 301 Summer Street features a shower the size of a studio flat. It is quite the contrast to the bathroom at Miss Maxwell’s former Kinnerton Street home where Virginia Roberts Giuffre claims she was forced into sexual relations with the Duke of York in 2001 – a room which we were able to prove she talked nonsense about when she claimed the bathtub “too small for any activity whatsoever” when we exclusively published photographs of it in January 2022. Of this bathroom, in July 2019, a “pal” and neighbour told ‘The Sun on Sunday’: “The house did have one unusual feature – a huge shower. It had Wi-Fi so they could control it from their phones, a steam unit, the whole nine yards. It was like a party shower. You can imagine what they got up to in there.” It has not been confirmed as to whether Prince Andrew ever got to try this particularly opulent shower area out.That the sitting room of Ghislaine Maxwell and Scott Borgerson’s one-time ‘together home’ has a gun above the fireplace is somewhat creepy given the former wife Rebecca Borgerson’s allegations that her former husband was “verbally and physically abusive” to her. The furnishings in the room, equally, are somewhat curious – the ‘prison orange’ sofa is especially apt given where Ghislaine Maxwell now finds herself.The Cape Ann seaside home that was bought by Scott Borgerson and Ghislaine Maxwell in June 2015 through Tidewood LLC, a limited liability company, stands above a rocky outcrop looking out to sea. It has a plaque on it that reads: “The Phippen Smith House, 1660. House originally at 9 Elm Street in Salem, deconstructed here in 1917 and reconstructed on its current site in 1930.”Incarcerated sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell with her since dead ex-lover and associate Jeffrey Epstein (left). The latter died by apparent ‘suicide’ on 10th August 2019 in prison awaiting trial whilst the latter took up with submarine pilot Scott Borgerson, supposedly married him in 2016, but curiously did not tell her very own siblings of this union until after her 2020 arrest. They are now divorced, but they most likely still have matters still to resolve.
Then & Now – How Maxwell and Borgerson changed ‘The Phippen-Smith House’ – Images from the June 2016 listing and images from the February 2022 listing
Then and now – The entrance elevation of 301 Summer Street from its driveway in 2016 (left) and in the 2022 listing imagery. The building does not look especially well kept or maintained in either image.Then and now – Supposedly vegan Ghislaine Maxwell and her beefy now ex-husband Scott Borgerson relocated the house’s kitchen into a space that the previous owners had used as a sitting and dining area and moved a window to accommodate a very large Sub Zero Wolf type oven. Their menacing choice of black and white tiling most certainly wouldn’t appear to more ‘homely’ cooks such as condescending cakebaker Dame Mary Berry DBE, cocaine crackpot The Honourable Nigella Lawson and “let’s be havin’ ya” yeller Delia Smith CH CBE.Then and now – The original kitchen may have been somewhat like that seen in the home of Hyacinth Bucket’s in the 1990s BBC series ‘Keeping Up Appearances,’ but the Borgerson-Maxwell version can only be surmised as having a “clinically cold look.”Then and now – A dining room with somewhat strange wallpaper in 2016 has been redecorated in a style that looks more like an office where Ricky Gervais might feel at home. The painting on the right-hand wall perhaps might have some kind of connection with Ghislaine Maxwell’s charity Oceana and her supposed number one passion (other than sex trafficking minors), the oceans.Then and now – Surprisingly, Maxwell and Borgerson did actually brighten up the hallway and staircase area of the home with a fresh white look. Again, however, one is left asking what strange extra-curricular activities the oars on the walls might have been used for.Then and now – Mr and Mrs Borgerson plainly liked the ‘vomit green’ colour in this room and made few changes here.Then and now – The previously traditionally styled master bedroom, however, got a full-on makeover and extension and sliding doors that’d look more suited to a residence in the oligarch hideout that is One Hyde Park.Then and now – What Americans call a ‘deck’ and what Brits might term a ‘terrace’ was subjected to a complete B&Q style makeover by Mr and Mrs Borgerson. The garden beyond now looks like a totally neglected wilderness. Mate of royals and TV gardener Alan Titchmarsh MBE most certainly would be less than impressed.Then and now – Maxwell and Borgerson tore off the traditionally appropriate colonial-style detailing at the rear of 301 Summer Street and plonked on what looks like a portacabin. Good taste and respect for architectural heritage and this couple most definitely are not in unity.
The Names, Dates & Numbers – Ghislaine Maxwell and Scott Borgerson and ‘The Phippen-Smith House’, 301 Summer Street, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Cape Ann, Essex County, Massachusetts, MA 01944, United States of America
9th May 2023 – Price of 301 Summer Street, Manchester-by-the-Sea reduced to £4.70 million ($5.85 million, €5.35 million or درهم21.48 million), Mansion Global reported.
Of this, the property publication remarked: “Mr Borgerson, a tech entrepreneur, couldn’t be reached for comment.” They also claimed: “Though the pair lived together at the home for a ‘brief time’ before Ms Maxwell’s arrest in 2020, she has no ownership stake in the home.”
The listing remains with Ryan Clunan and Tracy Campion of Campion & Company Fine Homes Real Estate and an ‘open house’ on 21st May has been arranged between 1pm and 3pm; a perfect outing for those wishing to take an eyeball at Mr Borgerson and Miss Maxwell’s ‘party shower.’
Late 2022 to early 2023 – Scott Borgerson and Ghislaine Maxwell complete their divorce. How their assets were split is unknown, but it is believed that Mr Borgerson walked away with a substantial stash of anything that remains from money made during their ‘secret’ (until Maxwell’s 2020 arrest) union.
Given that Maxwell remains a wicked woman incapable of accepting that taking at least £16.4 million ($20 million, €18.6 million or درهم73.5 million) from the since croaked paedophile Jeffrey Epstein was a totally unacceptable thing to do, goodness knows what became of the clearly vast funds likely hidden away by her possibly in the Channel Islands, Lichtenstein, Panama and elsewhere.
26th March 2022 – A beady-eyed reader supplies The Steeple Times with the current listing brochure for 301 Summer Street complete with up-to-date imagery of the house. It shows how Borgerson and Maxwell well and truly have made an utter mess of what was a previously charming residence.
March 2022 – The real estate website Realtor.com suggests the house to currently be worth a significantly lower sum and estimates its value at just £2.45 million ($3.235 million, €2.945 million or درهم11.88 million).
February 2022 – 301 Summer Street, Manchester-by-the-Sea is listed for sale for £5.368 million ($7.295 million, €6.443 million or درهم26.791 million) by Campion And Company. The firm, however, do not include a public listing of the property on its site and they do not include any current photographs of the house.
29th December 2021 – Ghislaine Maxwell – who has variously shown her decided deviancy by faking photos and using pseudonyms including ‘Jennifer Ellmax,’ ‘Jen Marshall,’ ‘Janet Marshall,’ ‘Mrs Scott Borgerson’ and just plain old ‘G’ – is found guilty on five out of six of the charges she had faced. Her husband was not present for the verdict and left his wife to face being sent down alone and with just her brothers and sisters to support the by now convicted child sex trafficker.
29th November 2021 – Ghislaine Maxwell goes on trial at the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Her husband did not attend on a single day of that trial.
2nd July 2020 – Ghislaine Maxwell is arrested at Tuckedaway.
In the weeks after her arrest, as she unsurprisingly unsuccessfully sought bail, Maxwell claimed via her lawyers that the “majority of her assets” had been transferred into a “trust controlled by her husband and another unnamed party.”
In documents submitted to the courts, they put her their worth at £17.1 million ($22.5 million, €20.5 million or درهم82.6 million) and suggested: “For Ms Maxwell to flee, she would have to abandon her spouse. She will not isk destroying the lives and financial well-being of those she holds most dear to live as a fugitive during a worldwide pandemic.”
Going further, they added: “In fact, every action Ms Maxwell has taken from the time of Epstein’s arrest up to the time of the first bail hearing was designed to protect her spouse… from harassment, economic harm, and physical danger. If Ms. Maxwell were to violate her bail conditions, which she has no intention of doing… she would be leaving her spouse…with virtually nothing.”
In a letter to Judge Alison J. Nathan, Mr Borgerson added: “The person described in the criminal charges is not the person we know. I have never witnessed anything close to inappropriate with Ghislaine. Quite to the contrary, the Ghislaine I know is a wonderful and loving person… I believe that Ghislaine had nothing to do with Epstein’s crimes.”
13th December 2019 – Ghislaine Maxwell purchases Tuckedaway, 338 East Washington Road, Bradford, New Hampshire, NH 03221 for £787,953 ($1,070,750, €945,752 or درهم3.93 million) via Jennifer Johnson and Margaret Weathers of Four Seasons Sotheby’s International Realty. The house had been listed at a price of £879,000 ($1.195 million, €1.055 million or درهم4.389 million) in March that year and sold previously for £773,000 ($1.050 million, €927,000 million or درهم3.856 million) on 15th December 2017.
Mid-late 2019 – Maxwell is said to have “fallen foul” of locals and left Manchester-by-the-Sea. An alleged sighting of her in Los Angeles followed in August 2019 when she was snapped at an In-N-Out Burger restaurant in Los Angeles, California. The photographs were proven to be fake as advertising on hoardings in the background had never been at that location. Her associate Leah Saffian, whose dog appeared in one of the images, has never explained her role in this skulduggery.
10th August 2019 – Jeffrey Epstein dies by supposed suicide in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in New York. He had previously supposedly attempted suicide on 23rd July 2019 whilst sharing a cell with alleged quadruple killer cop Nicholas Tartaglione.
6th July 2019 – Jeffrey Epstein is arrested after his private jet lands at Teterboro Airport, New Jersey.
15th June 2019 – The Cash & Rocket Rally ends in Monte Carlo. Miss Maxwell was clearly especially keen to avoid being photographed. She was subsequently not seen again in public until her trial commenced on 29th November 2021.
13th June 2019 – The mucky madam sets off from London on the car rally in an Alfa Romeo with Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason’s wife Annette (known as ‘Nettie’ to her chums). They travel first to Paris and then go via Geneva to Monte Carlo.
12th June 2019 – Maxwell and Borgerson are named in court documents concerning a case between Tidewood LLC and John Appel, Katherine Rive and Curtis Hollingsworth regarding a property dispute concerning their shorefront access. In due course, on 11th March 2020, judgment was found in favour of the plaintiff.
During this particular London visit, Miss Maxwell met with her six living siblings Anne, Kevin, Isabel, Christine, Philip and Ian to remember her late pension pot plundering father on 10th June 2019 on what would have been his 96th birthday. She also supposedly went to Buckingham Palace for tea with the man who subsequently paid £12 million ($15.8 million, €14.4 million or درهم58.2 million) to a woman he supposedly never met (but emailed Jeffrey Epstein’s ex-lover about), Prince Andrew.
30th June 2016 – The Phippen-Smith House is sold to Tidewood LLC, a limited liability company controlled by Ghislaine Maxwell’s “secret husband,” for £1.802 million ($2.450 million, €2.164 million or درهم8.998 million). The couple are said to have spent £1.8 million ($2.5 million, €2.2 million or درهم9.2 million) on renovations in the years since that included the installation of many security cameras. During the purchase process, Maxwell is said to have used the pseudonym ‘Jennifer Ellmax.’
April 2016 – Ghislaine Maxwell sells her Upper East Side, New York townhouse for £11 million ($15 million, €13.2 million or درهم55.1 million) and “disappeared.” She had originally bought that property in 2015 for £12.4 million ($16.9 million, €14.9 million or درهم62.1 million).
Date unknown in 2016 – Scott Borgerson marries Ghislaine Maxwell. She eventually revealed she was married to her until then “secret husband” in court in December 2020 to the surprise of the world and her own brothers and sisters even.
20th June 2015 – Rebecca Borgerson files for divorce from her then husband. She cited “irreconcilable differences.” The couple had married in 2001 and had two children together.
15th June 2014 – Scott Borgerson is charged with the assault and domestic battery of his then wife Rebecca Borgerson.
2014 – Ghislaine Maxwell meets her future husband at the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik, Iceland whilst married to his then first wife.
Burgh Island in South Devon, where Agatha Christie wrote several novels and The Beatles stayed also, goes on sale for the staggering sum of £15 million
Described as “the best hotel west of The Ritz” by its current owner Giles Fuchs, a favourite South Devon bolthole of Agatha Christie has just come up for sale for £15 million. It was here that the ‘Queen of Crime’ had her own writer’s retreat and where also that she was inspired to pen both And Then There Were None and Evil Under The Sun.
Burgh Island is situated just 820-feet from the mainland and is approachable by foot at low tide and accessible by a sea tractor at high tide; it also has a helipad for those wishing to make a grand entrance. Though 3 hours from London Paddington by train, those that have visited in the past – amongst them the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Sir Winston Churchill and J. M. W. Turner even – supposedly returned again and again captivated, like Christie, by its seclusion and beauty.
The 21-acre island – which has gone through several name changes itself and was once known as St Michael’s Island – was the inspiration for Christie’s fictional ‘Soldier Island’ in a novel titled Ten Little Niggers when it was first published in 1939. The 272-page book was subsequently retitled Ten Little Indians and then And Then There Were None because of concerns about offending – even prior to the arrival of ‘wokery’ and ‘cancel culture’ – the American market.
The strategy worked as to this day, the novel became both the best-selling crime and the best-selling mystery novel of all-time. Critics enthuse of what is a brilliantly warped yet rationally believable psychological thriller that follows the story of eight people invited to an isolated private island to meet their ultimate demise alongside their two caretaker hosts at a house party from hell. Unsurprisingly, since Christie produced a version for the stage in 1943, there have been more adaptations for that medium as well as for film, radio and television adaptations than of any of her other works.
A clear work of genius in both plot and the financial returns it generated for its author, And Then There Were None was actually structured around an 1869 minstrel song titled Ten Little Niggers by the British songwriter Frank Green. The rhyme – as published for these politically correct times where even future editions of Roald Dahl’s book will no longer feature the adjective ‘fat’ – reads:
Ten little Soldier Boys went out to dine; One choked his little self and then there were nine.
Nine little Soldier Boys sat up very late; One overslept himself and then there were eight.
Eight little Soldier Boys travelling in Devon; One said he’d stay there and then there were seven.
Seven little Soldier Boys chopping up sticks; One chopped himself in halves and then there were six.
Six little Soldier Boys playing with a hive; A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.
Five little Soldier Boys going in for law; One got in Chancery and then there were four.
Four little Soldier Boys going out to sea; A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.
Three little Soldier Boys walking in the zoo; A big bear hugged one and then there were two.
Two little Soldier Boys sitting in the sun; One got frizzled up and then there was one.
One little Soldier Boy left all alone; He went out and hanged himself and then there were none.
Whilst today’s visitors to the “comprehensively refurbished,” Grade II listed, 25-bedroom Burgh Island Hotel certainly are unlikely to face the unhappy endings of Christie’s ten unfortunates, they are able to enjoy “fine dining” at its two restaurants, and cocktails in its Palm Court bar. One can quite easily imagine Hercule Poirot sleuthing in or at the island’s 14th century pub, The Pilchard Inn. In addition, there is what is called the ‘Mermaid Pool’ – a naturally enclosed body of seawater where guests can swim or if, in the unlikely event they’d take a break from Dubai, perhaps ‘Wagatha Christie’ Coleen Rooney could witness Rebekah Vardy ‘Davy Jones-ing’ her mobile telephone for a second time even.
Of this “iconic landmark” – which a company ultimately controlled by Mr Fuchs paid around £5 million for in 2018 – selling agents Knight Frank enthused in their marketing material:
“The private island setting is virtually unique in the UK and the hotel, which has been fully restored, is one of the finest examples of working Art Deco architecture in Europe.”
“Burgh Island is a natural micro-environment, with wildlife to observe and cliff walks around the circumference. The sandy tidal beach on the eastern (mainland-facing) side is washed by the tide twice daily and so is always clean.”
Whilst the realty firm lauds total sales of in excess of £6 million for the year ending 2022, Agatha Christie actually best surmises why Mr Fuchs is seek to sell: “The best of an island is once you get there – you can’t go any farther… You’ve come to the end of things.” This week PlymouthLive revealed his company, Office Space in Town Limited (OSiT), “has debts of £130 million and is paying nearly £7 million in interests on its loans each year… [It] has borrowed huge sums and is relying on London property prices to remain stable in order to avoid breaching covenant terms which would mean loans having to be immediately repaid and potentially leading to the business going bust.”
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 – The island, hotel and The Pilchard Inn (top left); David Suchet as Poirot filmed ‘Evil Under The Sun’ there in 2001 (bottom left) and the island’s most famous visitor, Dame Agatha Christie DBE (right).
The island is being marketed by Knight Frank at a staggering price of £15 million after being sold last in 2018 for £5 million and prior for £2 million in 2001. The hotel includes 25 en-suite guest bedrooms and suites as well as the Ballroom Restaurant (64 covers), the Nettlefold Restaurant (72 covers), the Palm Court bar and lounge (42 covers) and The Pilchard Inn (35 internal and 114 external covers). There is also a billiards room, sauna and treatment room, a staff house with 9 bedrooms, a car park on the mainland with 18 spaces and a helipad. The property is offered on a freehold basis.Dame Agatha Christie DBE (1890 – 1976) remains to this day the world’s best-selling crime author. She penned 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, as well as the world’s longest-running play, ‘The Mousetrap.’ Over a billion copies of her works in the English language and a billion in translation have been sold; most notable are ‘Murder on the Orient Express,’ ‘Death on the Nile,’ ‘The Murder at the Vicarage’ and ‘The A. B. C. Murders.’‘And Then There Were None’ began life as ‘Ten Little Niggers’ and via being ‘Ten Little Indians’ gained its present title to suit the American market. Christie claimed it was the most difficult of her books to write, but it is also one of her most popular – over 100 million copies have been sold and the work stands as the sixth best-selling title (any language, including reference works) of all-time.‘Evil Under The Sun’ (1931) – which features an investigation into the murder of a flirtatious but not liked woman who is murdered whilst on holiday in Devon –remains one of Christie’s most popular works. It has been adapted multiple times and became a feature film in 1982 with Peter Ustinov as Poirot. In 2001, David Suchet played the detective in a version with alterations including the addition of the characters of Hastings, Japp and Miss Lemon – none of whom appear in the original novel. A PC game version of the story has even been made and in 1999, John Moffat played Poirot for a BBC Radio 4 adaptation. Here, the cast are seen getting into Burgh Island’s famous sea-tractor during filming.Roguish antiques dealer Lovejoy (Ian McShane) and his eccentric sidekick Tinker (Dudley Sutton) brought a new era of drama to Burgh Island when they filmed an episode there titled ‘Somewhere – Over the Rainbow?’ It was first shown in October 1994 and featured them going there to save Tinker’s financially strapped sister and her wheelchair-bound husband (presented as owners of the hotel) from losing it to a greedy property developer. The key to the story is finding a treasure trove hidden there by a notorious smuggler centuries earlier.Self-made multi-millionaire Giles Fuchs is the current owner of Burgh Island. He began his career as an estate agent, claims to have invested more than £1 million renovating the hotel to turn into something that looks “pretty spectacular.” He doubled the number of staff on site, brought in Mark Mosimann, son of King Charles III’s favourite chef, Anton Mosimann, and also bought accommodation on the mainland for some of the hotel’s workers to live in. In July 2020, he described the hotel as “like a house party” and the island as “beautiful” in comments to ‘Great British Life’ magazine.
The ‘Famous Face’ Guest List – Burgh Island, Bigbury-on-Sea, South Devon, TQ7 4BG, United Kingdom (Formerly Known As St Michael’s Island, Borough Island And Bur Island)
Dancer and singer Josephine Baker.
Musicians The Beatles – The band stayed there before playing a concert in nearby Plymouth.
World speed record holder Malcolm Campbell.
Agatha Christie – The prolific author is described as having made the island “her second home” and wrote And Then There Were None (1939) and Evil Under The Sun (1941) there. A beach hut was built for her to use as a “writer’s retreat.”
Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill – The politician supposedly met with President Dwight Eisenhower there prior to D-Day.
Flamboyant actor, playwright and singer Noël Coward – He supposedly booked in for three days, but stayed for three weeks and clearly very much enjoyed A Room With A View.
Shipping heiress, socialite and muse Nancy Cunard.
Odeon cinema chain founder Oscar Deutsche – The businessman travelled to the island with his wife and companion, World War One fighter ace Sol Joseph, in the latter’s Ford V8 Pilot just before the outbreak of the Second World War.
Actor and singer-songwriter George Formby – He is said to have been viewed as “the cheeky northern chappie who proudly picknicked on Bigbury Beach” during his visit who “guests didn’t know what to make of.”
Aviator Amy Johnson.
Actress Gertrude Lawrence.
Designer of the Spitfire R. J. Mitchell.
Last Viceroy of India Lord Mountbatten of Burma.
Artist J. M. W. Turner – The painter was “cast ashore during rough weather and ‘with a pencil, clambered nearly to the summit of the island’ to sketch its wilderness.”
Renegade royals The Duke and Duchess of Windsor – Said to have travelled to the islands on “frequent occasions” with their aide-de-camp Major Edward ‘Fruity’ Metcalfe.
In 1926, Christie disappeared from her home in Berkshire for 11 days. Mayhem and a manhunt worthy of her murder mystery books followed. Surprisingly, she didn’t choose to head to Burgh Island, but maybe that would have made her too easy to find given her love of the place. The reason for her decision to ‘vanish’ remains hotly contested today and this indeed will likely forever remain in the realms of the debate over who Jack the Ripper was – a case forever unsolved.
The Dates, Developments & Numbers – Burgh Island’s History
May 2023 – Placed for sale for £15 million ($18.8 million, €17.2 million or درهم69 million) through agents Matthew Smith and Henry Jackson of Knight Frank.
Commenting of the sale, Giles Fuchs told Plymouth Live: “Ownership of the Burgh Island Hotel has provided me with a wonderful journey and given me the true privilege of restoring and enhancing one of the most treasured tourist assets in the UK over the past few years. What we have achieved is an immense source of pride for all of us who have been involved and, in our work, we have always tried to ensure that the hotel’s 1920s spirit remains just as vibrant in the 2020s.”
Speaking to The Caterer, Matthew Smith of Knight Frank added: “It is rare for a hotel of such character and heritage to come to the open market.
“In recent years the buildings have received considerable investment and operates as a thriving business which generated in excess of £6 million ($7.5 million, €6.9 million or درهم27.6 million) turnover in its most recent financial year.”
“This is a unique opportunity to acquire a truly iconic hotel that benefits from a number of value-add opportunities to further develop the trading performance, and will no doubt appeal to a global investor audience.”
February 2023 – Plymouth Live reported on rumours about the hotel being for sale for £9 million ($11.3 million, €10.3 million or درهم41.4 million) after an advertisement appeared on Knight Frank’s website for a “mystery property” matching the description of it. Responding at the time, Henry Jackson of Knight Frank stated: “Burgh Island is not on the market. I don’t know where these rumours come from. At the time, the PR firm representing the hotel, Sapience Communications, added: “We have nothing additional to add.”
December 2022 – Planning permission granted for 12 additional guest bedrooms and suites and 13 staff bedrooms by South Hams District Council. Approval was also granted for extension of two of the restaurants and a spa facility.
This redevelopment, BBC News recently reported, will cost £7 million to £10 million ($8.8 million to $12.5 million, €8 million to €11.5 million or درهم32.2 million to درهم45.9 million) and of it, Mr Fuchs observed:
“I’m not the man for that job because once you start that, you need to do the whole thing. It’s also a substantial amount of cash and I don’t want to find [it], thanks very much.”
“We’ve got a big business in London and I could divert funds but the hotel was always about a love story; it was saving something that had been around for years that our family fell in love with.
“To divert more funds doesn’t make any sense to us. We want to buy more buildings in London.”
“She’s a demanding mistress and I ended up getting more and more involved at the expense of my life and other businesses, [but] I’m really pleased we’ve turned it around.”
Autumn 2021 – Burgh Island Limited accounts valued the business at £9.5 million ($11.9 million, €10.9 million or درهم43.7 million). At the time, profits of £296,000 ($370,000, €339,000 or درهم1.4 million) were listed down from £336,000 ($420,000, €385,000 or درهم1.5 million) in 2020.
The company was reported as employing 63 people with a wage bill of £1.6 million ($2 million, €1.8 million or درهم7.4 million). It paid dividends of £2 million ($2.5 million, €2.3 million or درهم9.2 million).
Mid 2018 – Sold by then owners Deborah Clark and Tony Orchard to Office Space in Town Ltd (OSiT), a company ultimately controlled by a London based businessman named Giles Fuchs and his sister Nichola, for a sum of £5 million ($6.3 million, €X million or درهم23 million).
January 2018 – Valued by estate agents Savills at £8.64 million ($10.81 million, €9.90 million or درهم39.69 million).
2012 – Singer-songwriter Ben Howard named his EP after the island.
2003 – The then owners closed the public footpaths on the island; this move was reversed in 2006 other than the routes closest to the hotel.
2002 – Used as a location for the television adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Evil Under The Sun.
2001 – Sold for £2 million ($2.5 million, €2.3 million or درهم9.2 million).
2001 – Used as the location of a television adaptation of Evil Under The Sun starring David Suchet as Hercule Poirot.
2001 and 2008 – Used as the location for ITV’s GMTV show Inch-loss Island.
1994 – Used as the location for an episode of the BBC series Lovejoy titled ‘Somewhere – Over the Rainbow?’
1987 – Used as a location in the BBC adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple: Nemesis.
1986 – Sold to a couple named Tony and Beatrice Porter, who “faithfully restored it to its former Art Deco glory.”
1965 – Used as a location for the film Catch Me If You Can.
1950s – Renovated, but instead of being used as a hotel became self-catering accommodation.
1939 – 1945 – Used by the RAF as a recovery centre for wounded RAF personnel. During this period, the top two floors of the main building suffered damaged after a direct hit by a bomb.
1927 – Sold to the filmmaker Archibald Nettlefold. He constructed a more substantial 25-room hotel in the Art Deco style in 1929 and after it became popular in the 1930s, added improvements and extensions in 1932 including ‘The Captain’s Cabin’ – it had been taken from HMS Ganges, a warship built in 1821.
1890s – Purchased by the music hall star George H. Chirgwin. He built a prefabricated wooden house to use for weekend parties.
14th century – The Pilchard Inn, the ‘local’ hostelry, is constructed circa 1336. It is believed to have begun life as guest lodgings for a monastery that possibly stood on the site of the current hotel.
Iron Age to Sub-Roman period – First settlers, tin traders, believed to have arrived.
More Images Of Burgh Island…
The approach to Burgh Island at low tide.Many people approach on foot; there are also a number of footpaths for visitors to enjoy once they get to the island.For guests of the hotel, there is a sea tractor they can travel on. Those that have experienced this wonderful contraption have commented on how much they have enjoyed the journey back and forth to and from the mainland.The gates to the hotel are suitably reflective of the Art Deco style of the property.The building is striking and one can certainly see what attracted the likes of Agatha Christie to it and the island.The Palm Court features a restored circular skylight. It is stunning and this is certainly a place where one can imagine such people as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and Nancy Cunard sipping martinis there of an evening whilst looking out to sea.One of two restaurants in the main hotel. The Nettlefold offers menus that are said to reflect the “uniquely wild island location.”The second, The Grand Ballroom, is a fine dining restaurant that is lauded as serving “award-winning food” in a setting that is styled around the “grandeur of a bygone era.”The guest rooms, such as ‘The Christie Room,’ have primarily been named after the famous faces who’ve stayed at the hotel in times past.The current owner has fully refurbished the property and furnished it with in-fitting Art Deco items.One of 25 bedrooms and suites at The Burgh Island Hotel; the majority enjoy superb views out to sea and to the South Devon countryside also.Another bedroom, this one with a private balcony.The Artist’s Studio is situated above The Pilchard Inn. It is a dog friendly room and just a few yards walk from the main Burgh Island Hotel building.Agatha’s Beach House has been described as “one of the sexiest hotel rooms in the UK” and is undoubtedly the ultimate place to stay on Burgh Island. It was built specifically for Agatha Christie in the 1930s and was where she penned both of her Burgh Island novels. It has a sitting room, outdoor hot tub, sun decks right onto the sea and includes a king sized bed, a double sofa bed and two single beds.The building from another angle.The sitting room of Agatha’s Beach House has the benefit of the most wonderful of aspects.It also has a woodburning stove.The Pilchard Inn was supposedly built in the 14th century as a lodging house for visitors to the monastery that is believed to have been on the island at that time. It is one of the oldest pubs in Devon.The bar.A traditional space perfect for drinks by the fire.Many of the rooms and suites at the Burgh Island Hotel, such as the Noël Coward suite, allow guests to experience the drama of the sea beyond.The ‘Mermaid Pool’ is a natural seawater pool in a “rugged” setting.Another view of this extremely unusual place to swim. Burgh Island is partly powered by solar panels.South Hams Council approved plans for additional rooms and additional staff accommodation at the Burgh Island Hotel in December 2022.The 21-acre island is just across the water from Bigbury-on-Sea.From a distance, one can genuinely see what attracted the great and the good to Burgh Island.
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 19th 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 18th and 19th 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 TheTelegraph. 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.
28th 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.”
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.
After Matthew Steeples called out ‘leaky #lockdownfiles sieve’ Isabel Oakeshott, her ‘chlorinated chicken chap’ Reform UK leader and TalkTV host Richard Tice bizarrely enquired of him: “What kind of monster are you?”
“Let’s Make Britain Great” is the predictably and very clearly ‘borrowed’ strapline used by Reform UK, a ‘political party’ – which actually is just an entity registered in England and Wales as company number 11694875. The Donald Trump-esque mantra is used as part of an attempt to attract swivel-eyed right wingers to an ‘operation’ that didn’t win a single seat in the 2021 London Assembly elections; at that poll, Reform UK laughably finished in tenth position – behind the Women’s Equality, Rejoin EU, UKIP and Animal Welfare parties even.
Tweeting Matthew Steeples, in several rambling rants likely written after a boozy lunch in Belgravia yesterday, ‘considerably richer than yow’ businessman and TalkTV tittle-tattler Tice very generously shared our article (“thanks, Dicky”) and remarked:
“So @M_Steeples is clearly just jealous of Isabel’s success because he is a 2 bit journo of a 2 bit rag that no-one has heard of. Keep going Matthew!”
Turning to COVID-19 itself, the father of three and regular yellow stickered shopper at ‘Celebrity Waitrose’ Belgavia raged:
“So you do not care about the damage to children, the inhumane CareHome restrictions, the awful funeral constraints, the suicides? What sort of monster are you?”
The response to his tweets has been overwhelming, but likely not quite what Tice was anticipating. Aside from being told: “Save your faux outrage, you hypocrite!” one social media observed: “Right back at ya. Stop spreading misleading information” of his ‘monster’ related question. Now Dicky dear, please do go and pour yourself a British beer and please ease your and grubby gym gear-clad Issie’s “jealousy” with that.
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 – Richard Tice decided to give Matthew Steeples a “Sunday sermon” about monsters yesterday; he did so late afternoon and likely after a few (British beer only) shandies and perhaps a boozy lunch (with non-European wines only) in Belgravia.
This morning on Twitter, Matthew Steeples asked: “Yesterday, Richard Tice of the Reform Party asked: ‘What sort of monster are you?’ of me after I called out his leaky squeeze Isabel Oakeshott. Who is actual monster in story of #lockdownfiles leaking of MattHancock’s WhatsApp missives?” He gave the options of a) Isabel Oakeshott (32.6%), b) Richard Tice, (8.7%) c) himself (6.5%) and d) Matt Hancock (52.5%). As of 11.30am on Monday 6th March the results were as listed.58-year-old Richard Tice ‘bigs himself up’ as some kind of man of the people in spite of having a clearly very privileged past and present. Often spotted in the tony taverns of Belgravia, this former Conservative donor has been involved in amongst other things property development and investment. He was privately educated at Uppingham and is the son the late horse trainer Joan Tice DL OBE. That he claims Matthew Steeples “jealous” of his gossipy girlfriend – a woman who falsely acted as a muckspreader when she falsely shared fake news that David Cameron had performed a sexual act on a dead pig – is proof permanent that he’s the one who is actually off his merry rocker. “Keep going Dicky!”Called out by Steeples after he suggested him a “2 bit journo of a 2 bit rag,” Tice responded: “What sort of monster are you?” He didn’t find a very positive response to his idiotic question from the majority of social media users.
Social media responds to Richard Tice’s rambling rants and questions about monsters…
Responding on Twitter and Facebook to the missives to Matthew Steeples, social media users observed of Tice and Oakeshott:
“Two-bit? Do you mean The Steeple Times? I read it all the time as do all in the know; distinguished and principled journalism – especially compared to the dross trotted out by your squeeze.”
“You’re a professional troll and so is Oakeshott. Who is paying you?”
“[Oakeshott] had these messages two years ago. Why is she only concerned about those issues now? What sort of monster is she?”
“The problem you have is that you are even more wrong than the government were!”
“Don’t try to kid us you care. You’ve tried to exploit the release of that information with your partner in an attempt to inflict political damage & now you pretend you care? You’re a 2 bit crappy grifter like Farage. I wouldn’t trust you with a lettuce, let alone our rights.”
“Save your faux outrage, you hypocrite! What about the damage to children currently suffering from Long Covid? I don’t hear you utter a bloody word about them!”
“If Isabel had been a decent person, i.e. concerned about what is in the public interest, she would have released ALL the information to ALL media without payment. We see you two for what you really are!”
“You are using those examples of wrongdoing and other peoples’ real human suffering to promote your own ends. What’s worse is that you are gaslighting people by cynically pretending that you are doing it ‘because you care,’ when self-interest is always your real motive. Shyster!”
“What we know is that Oakeshott released these messages at a time that was politically convenient but chose to hide the fact that Banks lied until she was exposed.”
“Disgusting you are trying to manipulate peoples’ suicides for your own benefit and agenda.”
“Serialised in the telegraph to maximise the news cycle/exposure. How is this about any more than @IsabelOakeshott and her personal & political agenda? It’s a massive scoop, dripping with tabloid subterfuge, but why dress it up as a crusade?
“She felt it was in public interest, was disgusted… But not before the book was out. And no doubt her leakage has been handsomely rewarded, possibly even legal protection should MH sue her. She’s the reason journalists will be less trusted with confidential matters.”
“They’re insulting your credibility, I thought you’d recognise that given how often it must occur.”
“You are a charlatan… Trying to make political gain out of peoples’ suffering. What sort of monster are you?”
“[You] didn’t care until you and [Oakeshott] could make political hay and a boatload of cash.”
“None of [the things Tice supposedly ‘cares’ about] are remotely true or relevant. File them under ‘things which ill-informed fight-wingers bleat about but never actually happened. No wonder the ‘UK’ is a global pariah and laughing stock.”
“It’s genuinely painful when dead-eyed sociopaths obsessed with political power no matter the cost lecture others about ‘caring.’ Your entire platform exists and feeds only on negative emotion, reactionary populism with power for its own sake as the final and only goal.”
“You would happily send [sic] asylum seekers drown. F**k off with the faux humanitarianism.”
“You do not care about so-called ordinary people. Stop pretending. I suspect you want an authoritarian far right tax haven complete with subservient work force.”
“You can care about all of this and still think your significant other is a wrong’un. Hope this helps, Dicky.”
“Like your partner, you care when it suits your agenda [Richard].”
“It’s you that’s the monster… A Tory monster. The worst kind.”
“Stop using peoples’ deaths for your own financial gain, you ghoul.”
“[‘What sort of monster are you?’]… That last line, have you ever considered looking in the mirror and pausing to think, [Richard]?”
“Right back at ya. Stop spreading misleading information.”
“Nice one… Brilliant… Keep up the good work, Matthew.”
“Oooh, you’ve got your knickers in a twist… Grow up Tice… You should be the leader of the Whataboutery Party.”
In August 2019, ‘The Steeple Times’ shared an image of Brexiteer Richard Tice buying yellow stickered salmon at Waitrose in Belgravia. We asked: “What next? Chlorinated American chicken?” and suggested he find another yellow sticker… That yellow sticker? ‘Bollocks to Brexit.’In September 2019, ‘The Steeple Times’ condemned Isabel Oakeshott as a “fake news creator” and shared a reader submitted photograph of her next to the “lapdance loving MP” John Whittingdale. For once, she wasn’t wearing her grubby gym gear.Reform UK bases its message most clearly on 45th POTUS Donald Trump’s message: “Let’s Make America Great Again.” It’s a message that has yet to resonate at the ballot box with the great British public. Perhaps Richard Tice should focus on that problem before worrying about ‘monsters’ that simply don’t exist.On Twitter, amongst much mockery, this image of a ‘Grifter’ bicycle simply shone out and had to be shared. As Norman Tebbit once argued, it might be time ‘Dicky Boy’ got on it.
Bungling berk Boris Johnson is supposedly upsizing and has allegedly bought the £4 million Brightwell Manor in Oxfordshire; the lavish lush that is the former Carrie Symonds will need a big budget if she is to clad the colossal 10,508 square foot crib in £840 per roll Lulu Lytle wallpaper
In November 2019, Country Life’s longstanding property correspondent described a “rare part-moated manor house set in almost five acres of gardens and grounds at the heart of the picturesque Oxfordshire village of Brightwell-cum-Sotwell, on the eastern edge of the Vale of the White Horse” named Brightwell Manor as a “forever home.”
Featured in The Times in an article by Liz Rowlinson in November last year after it “had three viewings so far from Americans,” the part-Tudor, part-Georgian house and its annexe and guest cottage provides a total of 10,508 square foot of accommodation over three floors. It has a total of 9 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms and if The Guardian is to be believed, it has just been sold to the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his considerably younger than himself wife.
Brightwell Manor has been owned by the same family since 1971, so, if indeed the Johnsons are the purchasers, the former Carrie Symonds will need to spend a hell of a lot of money on Lulu Lytle wallpaper to bring it “upto scratch.” This is a place that needs a lot of work and no doubt, ‘Carrie On Regardless’ already has plans bring in also ‘Lady Doors-To-Manual’ Carole Bamford’s JCB diggers to help install a swimming pool in the 4.88-acre grounds.
Suitably for the Brexiteer buffoon Johnson – who got paid an £88,000 advance in 2015 for a book on Shakespeare that he’s never bothered to actually write – in their marketing blurb, the selling agents predictably claimed: “Of its many owners perhaps the most notable was the Reverend Doctor W. R. Inge, Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral and Knight Commander of the Victorian Order. He was a prolific author and used the family room as his study for writing.” Maybe now, this is a room that will become the place where the “pyramid of piffle” that will be Johnson’s memoirs might finally get written.
Described as a “village of picture postcard prettiness” and as “in estate agents’ jargon, this is a sought after village, but it is much more than a pretty face” on the local community website, Brightwell-cum-Sotwell – which flooded in 2014 and has a CAMRA award-winning pub named the Red Lion where Johnson will no doubt get smashed with his wife and the likes of Henry Newman and Josh Grimstone – has a population of around 1,500 people. It lies between the towns of Didcot and Wallingford, is 55 miles west of London is and close to Didcot Parkway train station – which has trains running to Paddington in just 37 minutes.
Offered for sale in November 2019 at a somewhat punchy price of £5 million by Hamptons International, the “magnificent Grade II listed Georgian village house” stands on the likely site of the long since vanished Brightwell Castle. It was relaunched to the market subsequently for a sum £1 million lower by Andrew Russell of agents The Country House Department in October 2022.
“[This is a] properly edge-of-village house, so that you can be involved in the village community, or you can keep to yourself, depending on what you’d prefer.”
“The property used to be moated all the way around, with about two-thirds of this moat remaining today. [It was the tallest house in the area at the time of its building and it was] not good form to build a house that was taller than the local church. To rectify this, the family who built it also added a red brick tower onto the local church, St Agatha’s, which reaches just higher than the façade.”
“I believe Brightwell Manor once owned all the land around, and it was a big apple farming estate, so some of those trees may be very old.”
Johnson also currently owns a Grade II listed property in Oxfordshire, The Old Farm House at North Weston, near Thame. He bought it with his then wife Marina Wheeler for £640,000 in 2003 and most memorably came out in an ‘Xchanging’ branded hoodie to serve journalists tea in August 2018 during the scandal about him comparing Muslim women to letterboxes.
Featuring what Country Life’s Carla Passino called “true blue tiles,” Johnson – who got to keep the £1.25 million crib as part of his February 2020 divorce settlement – placed the 2,659 square foot property for rent for a sum of £4,250 per month through Strutt & Parker in April 2021. It is not known whether he intends to keep The Old Farm House or whether he’ll still be able to continue to bed down at the Knightsbridge residence of Lord and Lady Bamford that he has most recently been calling “home.”
Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party.
During his time married to Marina Wheeler, Boris Johnson lived much more modestly. Clearly, his ambitious and avaricious current wife Carrie would never contemplate living in a somewhat shabby former farmhouse.During their time in Downing Street, the Johnsons lived-it-up during lockdowns with their mates. Aside from boozing and bopping to ABBA with Henry Newman and Josh Grimstone, this grasping pair grabbed at least £30,000 of organic loot from their mate Lady Bamford’s Daylesford Organic. It was delivered by bike and van and no doubt, once in residence at their new mansion, they’ll be getting a hell of a lot more dropped off from the Gloucestershire emporiums of Daylesford.The Very Reverend William Inge KCVO FBA lived in the house for 30 years. He was born in Yorkshire, nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature three times and was also a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery from 1921 until 1951. A “strong proponent of the spiritual type of religion,” Inge was nicknamed “The Gloomy Dean” because of his pessimistic views and of social welfare he claimed: “It penalized the successful while subsidising the weak and the feckless.” Boris Johnson will no doubt take inspirtation from this in his writing in what was once his study.
The Names & Numbers – Brightwell Manor, off Brightwell Street, Brightwell-cum-Sotwell, Wallingford, Oxfordshire, OX10 0RT, United Kingdom
February 2023 – Listed as “sold subject to contract” on Rightmove with the purchaser being Boris Johnson at a price of circa £4 million ($4.8 million, €4.5 million or درهم17.7 million), The Guardian reports.
November 2022 – Featured in The Times and touted as being an example as to “why Americans are buying up Britain’s country estates.”
November 2019 – Offered for sale for £5 million ($6 million million, €5.6 million or درهم22.1 million) through Hamptons International and featured in Country Life.
1971 – Sold for a sum unknown by William Inge’s sons to a family who continued to own it until its recent sale.
Of them, Penny Churchill observed: “They hadn’t been long installed in their new home when, one day, they saw walking up the drive the distinctive figure of a former Government Minister, who – figuratively if not literally – whipped out his cheque book and invited them to name their price.”
“However, having only just found the right house for them and their five children, they had little hesitation in declining their visitor’s generous offer. Now, 50 years on, a similar approach would perhaps be more favourably received.”
1954 – William Inge died at the house aged 93. He is buried in the graveyard St Agatha’s, the adjoining church to the property.
1950s – Extended by The Very Reverend William Inge KCVO FBA (1860 – 1954), its then owner. Of him, Penny Churchill observed: “[Inge was] an eminent theologian and writer, who was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature on three occasions. He served as Dean of St Paul’s from 1911 until 1934, when he retired to live at Brightwell Manor, dying there 30 years later.”
9th April 1952 – Listed Grade II by Heritage England.
1933 – Offered for sale for £2,000 or the equivalent of £11,300 today ($13,600, €12,700 or درهم50,000 today)
1910s and 1920s – Penny Churchill stated: “Brightwell Manor remained part of a thriving estate until the outbreak of the First World War, after which it was sold a number of times as casualties mounted. A report in Country Life on March 27, 1920, announced the sale of Brightwell with six acres of land, describing it as ‘an historical and commodious Georgian Residence of very attractive appearance, having extensive views over the famous Berkshire Downs. The pasture land here is of considerable value, letting readily at £4 an acre.’”
1600s – The earliest Tudor part of the house is constructed as a “modest farmhouse modest farmhouse on the surrounding farming estate, being gradually gentrified until, towards the end of the 18th century, the symmetrical Georgian front was added. A red-brick coach house, latterly converted to a two-bedroom cottage, was added in the 1840s,” Penny Churchill suggested.
Pictures of ‘Bungling Boris’s’ new country crib…
This ain’t Chequers, but it ain’t too shabby either.The drawing room, in its current condition, resembles something like that of the home of Polly Urquhart in the 1980s BBC bonkbusting classic ‘Howards’ Way.’ No doubt, Lulu Lytle will be drafted in to deck this room out in a somewhat more gaudy shade of gold.The dining room has tones of Liberal Democrat to it that the Johnsons will no doubt want to erase.This is presumably the room where ‘The Gloomy Dean’ wrote many of his works. Will it be the place where ‘Bosie The Clown’ is actually inspired to finally finish any of his?Perhaps the calamity formerly known as Carrie Symonds will take to the piano in this sitting room and bash out some of ABBA’s tunes when visited by the pugnacious pair she allegedly nicknamed “the gays” that are Henry Newman and Josh Grimstone.Another sitting room clearly has sofas that are more of the colour of Sir Keir Starmer currently. It also features a fireplace with a tiny painting above it that would be more at home in Phillip Schofield’s broom cupboard.The kitchen is decidedly basic and still present is a 1930s AGA stove; that presumably won’t be that off-putting to the Johnsons given that this pair of grifters can rely on Lady Bamford to supply them with freebies and ready-made organic meals from Daylesford whenever they want.This staircase hallway has been wallpapered with a print that will remind the former Prime Minister of that that adorns the Pugin-esque Palace of Westminster.If Mrs Johnson wants to inspire her husband to finally put pen to paper, she could cram these shelves with relevant literature.A bedroom for Boris? This wood-panelled sleeping chamber will likely become the ‘Baby Dada’ of children unknown’s place where he and his wife rest their wicked heads.Another of the many bedrooms features a sofa that was clearly bought at Ikea. Lulu Lytle will have that straight in the skip.The house adjoins St Agatha’s church. Will the former Prime Minister become a regular there and will he attend with a view to seek redemption for his many, many, many crimes whilst in office?The gardens are flat and vast and are noted for the apple trees planted generations ago. ‘Carrie On Regardless’ might be able to develop a sideline in making cider using them or perhaps she’ll start making apple pies.The moat of Brightwell Manor could prove useful if Boris Johnson is forced to face visits from the anti-Brexiteer Steve Bray or climate change campaigners such as Greta Thunberg.Aside from the main residence, the building comes with an annexe and cottage also. Perfect for when good old Dominic Cummings wants to come round for a weekend outing; it’d save him the drive to Durham, after all.The house, seen from the side, is all front and no trousers. The Georgian element that gives it grandeur is actually not the prime part of the property; a bit like Boris Johnson himself, in fact.Viewed from a drone, the nigh on 5-acre ‘estate’ backs onto open countryside and has a vast area of gravel to the front; perfect for visits from the convoys of limousines of oligarchs like Lord Lebedev.Set back from the village but near enough to the pub for ‘BoJo’ to escape his wine chucking wife when required, Brightwell Manor has the privacy from the press a former premier will require yet gives him the ability to walk down the drive to ‘pull a John Gummer’ with a BSE burger at the garden gate if ever that might be required.Tennis anyone? The former Prime Minister can perhaps woe his next love or lover on the property’s court.A floor plan of the new home of the most loathsome leader of the Conservative Party.Seen on GoogleMaps… This will no doubt soon get blurred for the sake of privacy.Heritage England’s map will no doubt be vamoosed also.
“Internationally important” Greek Revival Cairness House has its price slashed from £3 million to just £1.25 million in spite of it having been given a renovation that supposedly cost over £1 million
Featured in The Steeple Times when last for sale in January 2015, a 10-bedroomed Scottish mansion once lauded by Country Life as “Scotland’s most important Greek Revival house” is back on the market.
Priced this time at just £1.25 million as opposed to the £2 million it was promoted for back then – and at a staggering sum 58% lower than its £3 million tag in May 2011 – Cairness House at Lonmay, near Fraserburgh is being promoted by Knight Frank. This time round, they hail it as “being a 45-minute drive from city centre of Aberdeen, the oil capital of Europe.”
Built to the designs of the much celebrated though very short-lived architect James Playfair (1755 to 1794) using “revolutionary forms of neoclassicism,” here is a truly spectacular residence constructed from finely detailed ashlar. It was designed as a ‘calendar house’ and consists of a 110-foot long main block flanked by two raised ‘bookend’ wings with a 270-foot long ‘hemicycle’ behind.
Featuring the earliest surviving ‘Egyptian Revival Room’ in the world – complete with elaborate hieroglyph plasterwork – this is an elegantly proportioned building that extends to some 32,626 square foot.
Speaking of Cairness House to The Scotsman in late October, Tom Stewart-Moore remarked:
“The main part of the house is finished – the impressive public rooms and the grand bedrooms above. But there is further scope for the bedrooms on the second floor and the extra space in the semi-circle of buildings at the back.”
“The buyer could be someone who loves the architecture and has the budget to develop it further for their own use. Others will want to make the most of the asset to develop as a venue – you have the whisky trail not far away, so it is an interesting hospitality package.”
“But whoever buys it will have to understand the history and its importance – it is an architectural gem and deserves an understanding owner.”
Sadly, of the 9,000 acres that this palatial pad stood in when it was built between 1791 and 1797, just 16 acres remain. The current owners have, however, made the most of what they have and in 2002 planted 150 young specimen trees that created an arboretum that marked the Queen’s Golden Jubilee.
Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party.
Current owners Khalil Hafiz-Khairallah and Julio Soriano-Ruiz in one of the many reception rooms in a house they have clearly lavished great amounts of money restoring.
The Names & Numbers – Cairness House, St Combs, Lonmay, Fraserburgh, Buchan, Aberdeenshire, AB43 8XP, United Kingdom
November 2022 – Placed for sale with Knight Frank again for the much lower sum of £1.25 million ($1.48 million, €1.44 million or درهم5.44 million), a sum 58% lower than the asking price in 2011.
January 2015 – On sale with Knight Frank for a significantly reduced price of £2 million ($2.4 million, €2.3 million or درهم8.7 million) after four years on the market.
May 2011 – Placed for sale for £3 million ($3.6 million, €3.5 million or درهم13.1 million).
2009 – The restoration works carried out by Khairallah and Soriano-Ruiz were commended by the Duke of Gloucester when their project won the Georgian Group prize for the best restoration of a Georgian house in Britain. In a statement, the group observed: “From being a moribund building at risk riddled with dry rot, Cairness is now a magnificent private home.”
2000 – Sold to Lebanese journalist Khalili Hafiz Khairallah and his Spanish art historian partner Julio Soriano-Ruiz for an undisclosed sum.
The pair subsequently claimed to have spent over £1 million ($1.2 million, €1.2 million or درهم4.4 million) on renovations that included their having “retiled the roof, installed central heating, restored 180 windows and spent a year and a half removing and recasting 51 cast-iron chimney pots.”
“We spent a couple of years looking for a neoclassical house. It’s perhaps surprising that we found it in this part of Scotland, but there are lots of hidden gems in Scotland. It’s the best Greek revival house of its type in Scotland, if not Britain. It’s got the most exquisite neoclassical interiors.”
“It needed an awful lot of work done to it. It was a ‘building at risk’, but we were looking for a house to restore and that was the challenge. We wanted a house that we could bring back to life.”
“It’s actually very easy to live in because all the rooms are on a very human scale. There’s nothing vast or difficult to heat.”
1994 – Offered to the National Trust of Scotland, but turned down by the organisation as “being too costly to repair” and sold to an architect named Philip Miller and his interior designer wife, Patricia, for a sum unknown. They “significantly renovated the property but after Mr Miller suffered a mild stroke, they ‘could no longer undertake such a large task and were forced to sell [in 2000] and find a less demanding project.’”
1991 – Added to the Building at Risk Register by the Scottish Civic Trust.
1950s onwards – The house becomes used as a farmhouse and falls into decline; its park is decimated and subjected to a “mass clearance of trees” to make way for the land being used for agricultural use.
1939 to 1945 – Used by the Consolidated Pneumatic Tool Company of Fraserburgh as evacuation premises for their London head office.
1937 – Sold by the Gordon family to Ethel, Countess of Southesk.
1791 to 1797 – Constructed in the neoclassical style for Charles Gordon of Cairness and Buthlaw to the designs of architect James Playfair assisted by Sir John Soane. At this time the accompanying estate extended to some 9,000 acres of land.
The building is subsequently described in the Pevsner Architectural Guides as: “Of international importance as the only house in Britain, the design and construction of which reflected and evolved with the rapid advances in French neoclassicism towards the end of the C18… Its survival is the more precious as so many of Playfair’s other designs were either not built or have been lost or altered.”
![In this watercolour by Cyril Farey (1888 – 1954), which Manning Fine Art describe as “capturing Princes Court at its prime”, the golden era of a building is shown. The art dealers observe: “[This] is not merely an architectural drawing it is expressing a lifestyle that only an apartment in Princes Court can provide. As such the fashionable and modern apartment block is surrounded by a Mediterranean blue sky and Hyde Park peaks out from the sides as an Eden of lush green. The smart street is punctuated by smart, friendly, yellow awnings whilst classic, stylish cars and iconic London buses pass by.” The same cannot sadly be said of the setting today given this part of Brompton Road has become better known for housing hookers, Rolex robberies and chronic pollution.](https://www.thesteepletimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Princes-Court-Knightsbridge-by-Cyril-Farey-designed-by-George-Valentine-Myer.jpg)
![When asked about what occurred on the night of 10th March 2001 in the first-floor bathroom at her Kinnerton Street mews house, Ghislaine Maxwell responded: “[Virginia Roberts] then characterized [sic] things took place in my bathroom in the bathtub itself. The tub is too small for any kind of activity whatsoever.” The picture of that very same tub used in marketing material by Wellbelove Quested and more recently Chestertons proved exactly to the contrary.](https://www.thesteepletimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Ghislaine-Maxwell-bathtub-statement.png)
