Victorian country cottage in picturesque rural setting in East Sussex for sale for less than a new BMW 3 series saloon
A brand new BMW 3 series saloon will set you back approximately £35,000 ($45,000, €41,000 or درهم167,000), but for the same sum you could buy a Victorian cottage in 0.103 acres in a “pleasant rural location” in Uckfield, East Sussex.
Set to be offered at auction by Savills, what sounds at first like an utter bargain had to come with a catch: 1 Jubilee Cottages has been unoccupied for over twenty years and now it has collapsed. Offered thus as having “potential for [the] reinstatement of a semi-detached house or a detached house subject to requisite consents,” this may not be quite what it seems.
In August 2019, the cottage made the news after an attempt to gain planning permission to demolish it and its neighbour by Miss Astral De La Mare of the High Cross Estate was rejected by Wealden Council. The rejected plans had proposed for “an estate manor house [with] brick quoins, [the] estate crest in the gable and a reconstituted stone portico.” The submitted plans included relocating the property further away from the “fast and dangerous road where there have been recent fatalities” and turning the existing Jubilee Cottages site “to a native flower rich wild meadow.”
The site of what remains of one half of the cottages will be sold on 12th February at The Marriott Hotel, Grosvenor Square in Mayfair, London.
Pictured top: The cottage and its neighbour prior to one half collapsing.
Grade II* listed Cumbrian mansion built by opium dealer and once marketed for £1.5 million for sale for just £460,000; it was also the scene of the UK’s biggest ever cannabis raid in 2012
A 23,000 square foot, 52 room, mid-19th century Palladian mansion in the Westmorland Dales National Park is to be sold at auction – by order of the mortgagees not in possession – for £1 million less than it was marketed for in 2014. It is sadly now described as being in an utterly wrecked, vandalised condition.
The entrance elevation of the mansion then and now
The strikingly grand interiors of Flass (prior to visits from the ‘Urban Explorers’)
The completely trashed interiors of the mansion (after visits from the ‘Urban Explorers’)
Built in 1851 for wealthy merchant brothers and tea and opium magnets Lancelot and Wilkinson Dent, 8-bedroomed Flass at Maulds Meaburn, near Penrith in Cumbria was designed by architects Grey and Mair and includes furnishings by the renowned firm Gillows of Lancaster and London.
Opulent to its core and said to have featured marble fireplaces, ivory door handles and friezes with pearls, Flass remained in the Dent family until 1973. Just prior to being sold for £17,000 (the equivalent of £202,000 today) that year to a historian named Frank Walsh, the then owner Sir Robert Dent opened up an attic of the house and discovered items from the Mughal Empire that he then auctioned for the astounding sum of £220,000 (the equivalent of £2.6 million today).
Subsequently this vast stucco finished, limestone built house – complete with a Doric porte-cochère and a three-storey tower – became a care home and was then after sold in 2000 to a singer-songwriter best known for co-writing the creepy Christian crooner Sir Cliff Richard’s Devil Woman named Christine Holmes (also known as Kristine Sparkle) and her husband Paul Davies. The pair turned the property into a performing arts school.
After the couple divorced, Davies took control of the mansion but due to spiraling maintenance costs, he eventually got himself involved with a gang of drug dealers in 2011. Due to what rental agents at the time described as the house being “totally private and hidden away, with an unmatched seclusion and charm,” Davies and his five cohorts were able to grow cannabis with a street value of £5.26 million undetected until a neighbour became suspicious. He was jailed for his role in the crime for three years and eight months in September 2015.
Singer-songwriter Christine Holmes outside Flass in September 2017 (after visits from the ‘Urban Explorers’ and their having trashed her home)
Paul Davies turned Flass into Britain’s biggest cannabis farm (and got himself three years and eight months in jail for his efforts; on his conviction his representative said: “He blames nobody but himself for getting involved in this criminal business”)
The “massive scale” £5 million cannabis farm operated at Flass was described in court as “a professional setup” and having the “real hallmarks of organised crime”
Christine Holmes subsequently took back control of Flass and after trying and failing to sell the house for £1.5 million spent £200,000 on renovations to put right the damage done by the drug operation. Her bad luck, however, was not to end there. In September 2017, the Cumberland & Westmorland Herald reported that a gang of ‘Urban Explorers’ had raided the somewhat derelict building and filmed their exploits. In the weeks that followed, trespassers returned at least twelve further times and “ransacked and trashed” the once glorious residence. She told the paper:
“I was absolutely horrified when I saw [videos of the house] online. I couldn’t believe how anyone could come into my home and believe it was an abandoned building.”
“I think since then people have been staying in the building and have even been there hiding while I’ve been there. I’m petrified. These are evil people who are breaking into my home. I think it’s becoming a game to them. They are breaking in every day.”
Auctioneers Harman Healy will now offer Grade II* listed Flass along with 17.5 acres of overgrown grounds with a guide price of just £460,000+ on 30th January. Christine Holmes no doubt will be glad if she finally gets shot of what she likely ended up considering to be the worst kind of white elephant.
Flass – The Numbers
January 2019 – To be offered at auction with a guide price of just £460,000 ($596,000, €525,000 or درهم2.2 million).
July 2014 – Offered for sale for £1.5 million ($1.9 million, €1.7 million or درهم7.1 million).
2000 – Sold for £490,000 ($635,000, €559,000 or درهم2.3 million) to the currently jailed drug dealer Paul Davies and his then wife songwriter Christine Holmes.
1998 – Reduced to £650,000 ($842,000, €741,000 or درهم3.1 million).
1997 – For sale for £750,000 ($972,000, €855,000 or درهم3.6 million).
1982 – Sold for £115,000 ($149,000, €131,000 or درهم547,000) to a retired solicitor named Malcolm Whiteside. He turned Flass into a care home which he ran with his wife Mary.
1973 – Sold by Sir Robert Dent, a descendant of the family who built the house, for £17,000 ($22,000, €19,000 or درهم81,000) to a historian named Frank Welsh.
‘The Steeple Times’ highlights Knightsbridge’s worst nuisance neighbour; meet hotel and leisure fund manager Jochen Schaefer-Suren
Jochen Schaefer-Suren clearly is someone with a passion for harbouring a grudge and an individual prone to intimidating others.
Yesterday, at Kensington Town Hall, this cowardly individual failed to personally to turn up in a case lawyers for him and his landlord had encouraged against a perfectly decent restaurateur named ‘Adriano’ Basha Bashkim and his fine establishment Giovanni.
Supposed bigshot of the business world Schaefer-Suren – a prat who surprisingly, himself, is in the hospitality sector and CEO of the hotel and leisure division of a firm called Principal – moved to a house he rented (yet despite his supposedly grand credentials does not own) in Yeoman’s Row in December 2017.
Giovanni restaurant
The weed infested frontage of the home of “The Knightsbridge Nuisance” Jochen Schaefer-Suren
He, like the occupants of the five other houses directly opposite Giovanni, knew he would be living in close proximity to a premises that has been the site of a restaurant for 45 years. He also likely got a substantial discount on his rent as result, but what did Schaefer-Suren do? This cowardly cretin did not establish good neighbourly relations and offer to swap a cup of sugar. Instead, he went to war and photographed the owner’s children and customers like a snitch from behind his curtains.
Schaefer-Suren then sent bombastic rants to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and falsely claimed that others in the street supported his campaign to close down Giovanni. Not a single fellow resident appeared yesterday in support of his plainly false set of claims.
Here is a “mouse” (most definitely not a “man”) who likes to be a bully boy from behind the confines of the door of his scruffy, weed infested curtilage (pictured above). Jochen Schaefer-Suren is a disgrace of the first order and we name and shame this pest and public nuisance as such. Why doesn’t he just move to Surbiton? He’d be better suited to living next to a suburban Starbucks. It’s not Giovanni who should be gone; it’s Jochen Schaefer-Suren.
Mayfair “farmhouse” where Mrs Simpson began her affair with the then Prince of Wales for sale for 147% more than it was marketed for in 2012
Last marketed at a price of £4.75 million ($6.04 million, €5.30 million or درهم22.19 million) in 2012 and offered for sale in 2005 at an undisclosed sum also, a house where the then Mrs Simpson began her affair with the then Prince of Wales is again for sale.
Rebuilt in the early 1900s by a Mrs M. Strakosch in “the Gothic style,” Farm House – or 22 Farm Street as it is more simply known – stands on the site of a farmhouse that predated the development of Mayfair.
Entered through a large oak front door that feature the heads of the twelve apostles, the half-timbered house Mrs Strakosch commissioned featured Flemish linenfold paneling and 17th century doors. Though much of this has now gone, a number of Jacobean and medieval features remain and what is now offered is described as “the perfect space for modern entertaining.”
Farm House, 22 Farm Street, Mayfair, London, W1J 5RQ – For sale for £11.75 million
Gloria Swanson, Gloria Vanderbilt and Thelma Furness
Farm House includes three reception rooms, two kitchens, six bedrooms, four bathrooms, two terraces and a garage. It extends to 4,564 square foot over four floors and was home to the Swiss born Thelma Furness, Viscountess Furness (1904 – 1970), the twice married mistress of the then Prince of Wales and later King Edward VIII between 1930 and 1934, during their relationship.
Furness, whose twin sister Gloria (1904 – 1965) became a Vanderbilt and was also the maternal grandmother of the American news anchor Anderson Cooper, at this time, was friends with Wallis Simpson. She introduced her American friend to the prince at her country house, Burrough Court, near Melton Mowbray, first in 1931 but then became supplanted in his affections in 1934.
With their relationship approaching its end, Furness embarked on a short affair with Prince Aly Khan whilst in America and whilst there allowed Simpson to live in her Farm Street home according to the actress Gloria Swanson (1899 – 1983). Later, in her autobiography Silent Boulevard, Swanson wrote:
“Lady Thelma Furness had a charming house on Farm Street, where her friend Wallis Simpson has kept the Prince of Wales company while Thelma was away in the States.”
Swanson, whilst pregnant, and her then husband Michael Farmer subsequently rented Farm House from Furness and of their time there wrote: “The house was empty for the moment, so we settled in to wait for the baby and see old friends.”
Knight Frank now seek £11.75 million ($14.95 million, €13.12 million or درهم54.90 million) for Farm House. Reportedly, according to a 2012 Mayfair Times article, the property comes with deeds that specifically mention that it still has a “right of way for sheep.”
Repossessed Grade I listed Dorset mansion once worth circa £15 million for sale for £3 million; the catch? It’s burnt to the ground
An “exceptionally important,” Grade I listed, 38,000 square foot, 16th century country house in Dorset with 131.6 acres for just £3 million is certainly something that sounds like a bargain. Sadly, however, Parnham House, near Beaminster comes with a catch: it burnt to the ground in April 2017 and doesn’t even have a roof.
Remodeled by the architect John Nash in 1810 and subject to a costly renovation – sadly now obviously gone – since being bought by the late financier Michael Treichl and his wife Emma in 2001 for £4 million, Parnham House has variously been a family home, was requisitioned during World War II by American troops and was the School for Craftmanship in Wood from 1976 to 2001.
Michael and Emma Treichl
The front elevation of Parnham House before the fire
The front elevation of Parnham House after the fire
The fire in full force
The aftermath
Now listed on the Heritage at Risk Register and likely to cost millions to restore, Parnham House’s destruction came about as a result of an arson attack on the property. The wealthy financier Treichl, who subsequently strangely left just £10,000 in assets in his will after drowning himself on Lake Geneva in June 2017. He is said to have suffered severe depression and possibly suffered catastrophic losses after betting on Brexit.
Offered for sale by Sanderson Weatherall, the estate also includes an undamaged dower house, an undamaged cottage and equestrian facilities. In addition there is a mature park, formal gardens, a lake, walled gardens, a deer park, a tennis court, a bowling green, a swimming pool, fields, woodland and a stream.
Parnham House – The Numbers
2018 – For sale for £3 million ($3.8 million, €3.3 million or درهم13.8 million).
2017 – Said to be worth £15 million ($18.8 million, €16.6 million or درهم69.1 million).
2001 – Sold to Michael and Emma Treichl for £4 million ($5 million, €4.4 million or درهم18.4 million).
6,000 acre Scottish estate that offers the perfect opportunity to bag a ‘Macnab’ for sale for less than a price of a poky Knightsbridge flat
John Buchan’s 1925 novel John Macnab is a must read and centres on three successful but bored friends – lawyer Sir Edward Leithen, Conservative politician John Palliser-Yeates MP and former adventurer the Earl of Lamancha – who decide to turn to poaching. Under the collective name of ‘John Macnab,’ they set themselves the challenge of within 48 hours they will remove a salmon or stag, undetected, and present it at the door of the three estates they warn.
Revisited more recently by Robert Harris in his recently published second ‘Richard Hannay series’ novel, Castle Macnab, an opportunity for anyone wishing to partake in the The Field magazine’s modern day ‘Macnab Challenge’ has arisen as a result of the 5,885 acre Achnabourin Estate, near Bettyhill in Sutherland coming to the market.
Offered for just £995,000 ($1.3 million, €1.1 million or درهم4.7 million) – the price of a poky 580 square foot one bedroom flat in Knightsbridge – Achnabourin is split between coastal dunes, pastureland, semi-ancient natural woodland and heather clad hills.
As well as five bedroom lodge and a two bedroom housekeeper’s cottage, the estate provides stalking, grouse, woodcock and duck shooting potential and wild brown trout fishing on thirteen lochs. Salmon fishing is possible through a local permit also and selling agents Goldmsith & Co. describe the property as “a wonderfully diverse coastal estate offering mixed sport and fantastic views… A true gem.”
Romantic island in Ireland complete with its own castle for sale for just £80,000; there is, of course, a catch
A 0.54 acre island at the southeastern end of Lough Key, near Boyle in County Roscommon is to be sold this December. A castle was built there first in the 12th century and though that was eventually burnt to the ground after being struck by a bolt of lightning, about 200 years ago a “folly house” was constructed in its place by an English family named the Kings.
Once again now a ruin, this Irish National Monument is described as being in a “perilous state” but could potentially be restored to create what could be the most spectacular holiday home imaginable.
Associated with the Legend of Una Bhan – the tragic story of a girl who fell in love with the son of the clan chief owner of the island – McDermott’s Island also featured in the works of W. B. Yeats and was visited by Sir Bob Geldoff when he made a BBC film titled A Fanatic Heart about the Irish poet in 2016. It was previously used for the Sky One sitcom Moone Boy starring Steve Coogan and Johnny Vegas in 2014.
Offered with a guide of £79,000 ($102,000, €90,000 or درهم373,000), bidding opens on 7th December and closes on the 13th December though BidX1. Grand Designs loving sorts will no doubt be queuing up.
A Lancashire country cottage with 1.4 acres is for sale for less than the price of a parking space in Knightsbridge; it could be yours for just £80,000
A country cottage with acreage: It sounds idyllic and with a price of just £80,000 ($104,000, €92,000 or درهم381,000), it’s cheaper than the price of a parking space in Knightsbridge.
Situated in the rural Ribble Valley village of Hothersall in Lancashire, Falicon Cottage is in need of modernisation but includes a sitting room, dining kitchen, utility room, two bedrooms and a bathroom. It comes with 1.42 acres of land split into three parcels and a set of what are described as “dilapidated huts.”
519 acre Gloucestershire estate complete with “challenging” high bird estate goes on sale for £16.5 million in spite of needing a further £1.5 million spent on it
A ringfenced Cotswolds estate has gone on sale for £16.5 million ($21.6 million, €18.8 million or درهم78.9 million) in spite of being centred around an eight bedroom house that is basically nothing other than shell.
Altered and extended in the 1920s when part of the Dent-Brocklehurst family’s Sudeley Castle estate, Sudeley Lodge was supposedly visited by George III in 1788 and needs a further £1.5 million ($1.9 million, €1.7 million or درهم7.1 million) spent completing its renovation.
Offered for sale due to the current owner having fallen ill and thus become able to complete its refurbishment, this 10,781 square foot Grade II listed former hunting lodge is described by selling agents Knight Frank as “an enchanting sporting estate.” It comes with a farmhouse, keeper’s cottage, two cottages and various traditional and modern farmbuildings.
What makes the property most attractive, however, is the estate’s “challenging” high bird pheasant and partridge shoot. Shot for 13 days per season currently, bags average 150 to 300 birds a day and of it, in September 2012, Country Life remarked: “I know of one syndicate in particular that embodies all the qualities one could ask for in a syndicate day… Studeley Lodge… A beautiful high-bird shooting and farming estate.”
A proposed design for an upgrade to the boat house
Siutated at the southern end of the 9 mile long Ullswater lake, Wall Holm Boathouse at Glenridding is set on a ¼ acre plot accessible on foot only. It is of timber framed construction and has a double wet dock with a walkway on three sides.
Outside, aside from spectacular views across what is often described as “one of the most beautiful English lakes,” there is an area of raised deck seating and a 65-foot frontage to the water.
The boat house is offered for sale by Fine & Country and potentially could be upgraded to provide “day accommodation.”
