Prince Charles puts a Cornish quarry up for sale
In London, £40,000 to £50,000 won’t buy even a parking spot. In Cornwall, if the auction guide price is met, it’ll get you a former slate quarry with an engine house and 45.88 acres of land that is currently owned by Prince Charles’s Duchy of Cornwall. (more…)
Could the most deprived area in Britain be the place to invest?
The city of Detroit has long been a no-go area and its decline from an automotive giant to a capital of deprivation has been well documented. Britain’s equivalent is a small seaside village named Jaywick, near Clacton-on-Sea in Essex. (more…)
The worst property particulars ever?
Estate agents often use clever photography to promote properties and urge sellers to tidy up and brew hot coffee before viewings. The brochure for a one bedroom flat in Stanhope Gardens in London’s South Kensington, however, is an example where an agent has done anything but. (more…)
Manor house owned by one of the McAlpine family comes to the market
The McAlpine family have construction in their blood. They’ve built everything from The Dorchester to the Millennium Dome and one of the current generation, Cullum McAlpine, is no different. His Cotswolds country house, Cold Ashton Manor, is currently for sale for £4 million and its architectural features are stunning. (more…)
Scottish castle for sale for just £28.90 per square foot
They say that owning a grouse moor is equivalent to burning £50 notes but the buyer of the 41,433 square foot Carbisdale Castle in Sutherland will take on an altogether bigger burden. (more…)
Knight Frank take an unusual tack to promote a property
Knight Frank is known as the estate agent to the rich and famous. Like other realty firms, of course, they pepper their brochures with superlatives such as “exemplary”, “spacious” and “glorious” but in the marketing of 33 Portland Place, they truly take the biscuit. (more…)
An opportunity to buy an American equivalent of Downton Abbey
Downton Abbey returns to our screens this autumn and one has to ask whether its writer Julian Fellowes was at all influenced by the story of the story of Peter Widener of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania whose son and grandson both died in the sinking of the RMS Titanic. (more…)
Confused.com founder puts castle on market for £1.5 million less than she spent on it
“Wild haired” Kate Armstrong, the Australian founder of Confused.com, bought the medieval Scottish castle Cassillis House in Ayrshire from the Kennedy clan in 2009 for £3 million. She spent four years and £3.5 million updating and improving it but is now selling it at a loss for just £5 million. (more…)
Former residence of Leona Helmsley comes to the market
Leona Helmsley didn’t do “little”. She lived by the belief that “only the little people pay taxes” and housed herself in a vast mansion on a 40-acre plot in Connecticut. Helmsley died at the house in 2007 and it is now once again for sale (more…)
An opportunity to create your own version of Downton Abbey in the Cotswolds
For a mere £27 million you can currently purchase a 6-bedroomed mews house in Reeves Mews in Mayfair. Alternatively, a buyer with the same sum to hand could splash out on something a little grander, a 774.32 acre Cotswold estate complete with a mansion, two entrance lodges and eleven cottages. (more…)