Quirky 1995 Rolls-Royce estate car for sale for just shy of £100,000; it’s perfect for picnics and conveying posh pooches
A 1995 special edition Rolls-Royce Flying Spur converted to an estate car in recent years from a Silver Spur III with just 25,000 miles on the clock is currently for sale for £99,000 ($138,000, €112,000 or درهم508,000).
Redesigned by West Coast Customs for an American music company executive circa 2011 for use in California, the vehicle offered features a “raked roof-line” and is finished in British Racing Green with light green over. It has just 25,000 miles on the clock, a tan leather interior and a boot with acres of space for dogs, picnics and goodness knows what else.
The 6.8-litre, turbocharged V8 engine, automatic, right-hand drive car – one of just 134 Silver Spur III’s – is offered by Desmond J. Smail of Olney, Buckinghamshire, England.
Follow The Steeple Times on Twitter at @SteepleTimes.
Ferne McCann shamelessly attempts to flog £12.95 lip plumping primer on Instagram just as the father of her child is jailed for an acid attack in London
Just as her former boyfriend and father of her child, Arthur Collins, was deservedly jailed for 20 years with an extended licence of 5 years for throwing acid over 22 victims in a nightclub, Ferne McCann inappropriately took to Instagram yesterday to promote a £12.95 lip plumping primer for a company named Project Lip.
McCann – a dimwit whose “glittering career” has included stints on The Only Way Is Essex and This Morning – despite being immediately criticised for her insensitivity then also shared a picture in which she posed with the equally pointless famous-for-nothing James Argent. In doing so, she piled yet more misery on those injured and scarred for life by Collins but no doubt she thought: “Hey ho, I may as well make a little dosh out of all this media attention.”
“Despicable liar” Collins – a sorry excuse for a man identified as being of “low IQ” at his sentencing – will now rightly rot for at least ten years. His actions were sick beyond belief and though Miss McCann cannot be blamed for what this scumbag thug did on 17th April 2017 at the Mangle E8 club in Dalston, London, she should realise that distastefully promoting cheap beauty products just as Collins’ was sentenced is nothing but tremendously tasteless and utterly wrong.
#BoycottProjectLip #ShameOnFerneMcCann
Pictured above – Ferne McCann with “her love” Arthur Collins in Dubai in an identical ‘Killer Candy’ T-shirt to the one he wore whilst throwing acid over the 22 people whose life he forever altered.
Follow The Steeple Times on Twitter at @SteepleTimes.
Ferne McCann shared this post on Instagram on the very day the father of her child Arthur Collins was sentenced for an acid attack; we are sure his 22 victims would love to buy a £12.95 lip plumping primerShe also posed for an image with ‘The Only Way Is Essex’s’ James ArgentFerne McCann with the now jailed Arthur Collins in happier timesFerne McCann posted a picture of her child with Arthur Collins just five days ago; that child is named ‘Sunday’ and chillingly, as some have observed, the night of the week that Collins arrived at the Mangle E8 club to conduct his attack was a Sunday (the actual incident occurred at 1am on Bank Holiday Monday)
Neglected Georgian mansion that has been home to Sir Dirk Bogarde, Basil Dearden, Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne, Matt Aitken and Robert Kilroy-Silk for sale for 39% less than it sold for in 2014
A dilapidated Grade II* listed country house whose extensive roster of owners numbers aristocrats, rock and film stars and politicians is on sale for £3.95 million or 39% less from the £6.5 million sum it sold for in 2014.
Built for the Duke of Buckingham in the 1600s and extending to 10,743 square foot, Beel House in Little Chalfont, near Amersham in Buckinghamshire stands in 13.5 acres of land. It comprises of a 7 reception room, 8 bedroom, 6 bathroom main house and also comes with an indoor swimming pool complex, a tennis court and garaging for 5 cars.
Home to The Hon. Lady Caroline Cavendish in the 1830s and Colonel Abram ‘Arthur’ Lyle of the Tate & Lyle dynasty from 1909 to 1920, Beel House was bought by the actor Sir Dirk Bogarde in a “dilapidated state” in 1954. Of discovering it, Bogarde, who had been renting a cottage in the close vicinity on the Bendrose Estate, stated:
“[The actress Kay Kendall and I] walked across muddy fields from my rented home to look at Beel House. It was a horror. Bleak and empty, few of its twenty-six rooms caught the sun, and the garden surrounding it was a tangle of overgrown rosebeds. Inside it seemed a labyrinth of corridors and stone passages. It was painted throughout in dejected yellow and brown and each room had a rusty gas fire in it.”
Bogarde made significant changes to the building and pulled down a wing of 11 rooms. In their place, he built a swimming pool and a 30-foot long conservatory in the grounds – which Kay Kendall later described as looking like “an out patients’ department” – and it seems he spent several happy years there. He moved to another property nearby named Drummer’s Yard in 1960 and sold Beel House to Basil Dearden, the director of The Assassination Bureau, Khartoum and The Man Who Haunted Himself.
An aerial photo of Beel House, Little Chalfont, Amersham, Buckinghamshire, HP7 9QP, United KingdomImages of the exterior of Beel House in the 1950sActor Anthony Forwood, Sir Dirk Bogarde’s eventual “life partner,” at Beel House with his dogs Sinuhe and Bogie; Sir Dirk Bogarde in his study at the houseSir Dirk Bogarde outside Beel House with one of many Rolls-Royces he owned and inside on the house’s main staircaseFilm director Basil Dearden, owner of Beel House between 1960 and 1966, worked with Sir Dirk Bogarde on the controversial film ‘Victim’ in 1961; it was the first English language film to use the word “homosexual” and of it one Italian critic remarked: “At last the British have stopped being hypocrites”
Dearden sold up in 1966 and the next famous owners were Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne in the early 1980s. It was whilst here that Mr Osbourne “decided to murder his wife” and of the ensuing incident on 3rd September 1989, the Amersham Museum’s website reports:
“Ozzy Osbourne put the house up for sale after he had been arrested for the attempted murder of his wife whilst living at Beel House. After taking a cocktail of drugs and drinking heavily during a family meal at the Chinese restaurant at Nightingales Corner he attacked his wife and was subsequently arrested. He had no memory of the attack but the conditions of his bail were that he entered a rehab centre, did not contact his wife and did not return to Beel House.”
Marketed for £1.75 million in 1991, unsurprisingly Sharon Osbourne, herself, did not have much positive to say about her time at Beel House either. In her 2006 autobiography, Extreme, she remarked:
“I decided I wanted to go back to England. By this time we had already sold Beel House. I had enough bad memories not to be too sorry to see it go. Also it had reached what the builder called the domino point: mending one thing only triggered something else that needed to be done.”
Ozzy Osbourne, photographed by Conrad Rickenbacker, sitting on his four poster bed at Beel House in the 1980sImages of Beel House during the ownership of Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne (photographs by Conrad Rickenbacker)Robert Kilroy-Silk at Beel House prior to his appearance on ‘I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here’ in November 2008The house as furnished by Robert Kilroy-Silk and his wife Jan Beech, circa 2014
Matt Aitken, the composer of chart toppers for Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, Rick Astley and Bananarama, supposedly lived at Beel House for a period subsequently and in the 1990s, the property was sold to the “exotically handsome man, with a very un-English facial glow and ice blue eyes” Robert Kilroy-Silk and his wife, Jan Beech.
Controversial television personality Mr Kilroy-Silk, an MP from 1974 to 1986 and an MEP from 2004 to 2009, brought with him a herd of fallow deer as well as Vietnamese pheasants and bantams to Beel House. He lived between there and his home in Spain and then sold up for the staggering sum of £6.5 million in 2014 to an “international buyer” who, according to Country Life’s Penny Churchill, immediately found “it ‘surplus to requirements’ and put it straight back on the market” through Savills.
Of the estate, which by then had been for sale for three years, in October 2017, then selling agent Hugh Maconochie told the Bucks Free Press:
“In many respects Beel House is the archetypal country residence: a Grade II* listed home in the heart of the Chilterns, beautiful grounds and easy access to London by both rail and road. Yet, while it was completely refurbished in the 1980s – new garaging, games block and swimming pool complex included – its current state necessitates a complete restoration project.”
“For those seeking a country residence to move straight into, Beel House is not the home for them. Instead it would appeal to a buyer looking to restore and revive a Georgian gem. A reduction in price over the years reflects the refurbishment that’s required.”
Empty and plainly somewhat neglected, Edward Welton of Knight Frank’s Baker Street office is now marketing the property. His firm describes Beel House as: “An exciting opportunity for a full restoration project, giving someone the chance to create their own style on a private estate, so close to London.”
Beel House – The Names and Numbers
November 2017 – Further reduced to just £3.95 million ($5.29 million, €4.47 million or درهم19.44 million) through Knight Frank.
January 2017 – Reduced to £4.95 million ($6.63 million, €5.61 million or درهم24.37 million) through Savills.
November 2015 – For sale again for £6.5 million ($8.7 million, €7.4 million or درهم32 million) through Savills.
2014 – Sold to “an international buyer” by Robert Kilroy-Silk for “close to” the £6.5 million ($8.7 million, €7.4 million or درهم32 million) asking price.
June 1991 – For sale for £1.75 million (the equivalent of £3.45 million, $4.62 million, €3.91 million or درهم16.98 million today).
October 1989 – Placed for sale by media personalities Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne.
1966 – Placed on the market by Basil Dearden for £66,000 (the equivalent of £1.1 million, $1.5 million, €1.2 million or درهم5.4 million today).
Circa 1960 – Sold to film director Basil Dearden (1911 – 1971).
January 1954 – Sold to actor Sir Dirk Bogarde (1921 – 1999) for £4,000 (the equivalent of £101,000, $135,000, €114,000 or درهم497,000 today).
1836 to 1954 – Part of the estate of the Lowndes family, largescale landowners in the Chesham, Buckinghamshire area. During this time tenants included The Hon. Lady Caroline Cavendish and from 1909 to 1920 by Colonel Abram Lyle (of the Tate & Lyle dynasty).
1730 – Valued at £500 (the equivalent of £99,000, $133,000, €112,000 or درهم487,000 today) by Sun Insurance whilst home to Thomas White of Middle Temple.
1672 to 1682 – Home to Mary Pennington, the mother-in-law of the Quaker founder of the State of Pennsylvania, William Penn.
Follow The Steeple Times on Twitter at @SteepleTimes.
1966 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III drophead coupé used by Colin Farrell in 2010 crime noir film ‘London Boulevard’ to be auctioned
A 1966 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III drophead coupé first owned by the Malaysian royal family and more recently used in the 2010 crime noir motion picture London Boulevard – starring Colin Farrell, Keira Knightley and Ray Winstone – is to be auctioned in London in December.
Professionally restored and featuring ‘Chinese Eye’ slanting headlamp nacelles, the car offered was the last off the production line to be registered and delivered new to Malaysia in June 1966. It remained there until the 2000s and was then registered in the UK by the managing director of the official Bentley dealership in Exeter in June 2009.
The 6.2-litre V8 car – chassis number CSC81C – will be sold by Bonhams at their Collector’s Motor Cars and Automobilia sale on 6th December at London Olympia. It will be offered with an estimate of £300,000 to £350,000 ($397,000 to $463,000, €338,000 to €395,000 or درهم1.5 million to درهم1.7 million).
Follow The Steeple Times on Twitter at @SteepleTimes.
Former San Francisco home of actor Nicolas Cage for sale for £11.4 million or 660% more than it sold for in 1996
Thrice married and an Academy Award winning actor Nicolas Cage is also known for lavish spending. Aside from once buying twenty-two cars in one hit – including a “squadron” of nine Rolls-Royce – he “wound up” owning fifteen personal residences in 2007 and now one of them is for sale for £11.4 million.
898 Francisco Street in San Francisco’s Russian Hill neighbourhood was purchased by a trust connected to Cage in 2006 for £6.9 million and sold by him in 2008 at a loss for £6.3 million. It was built in Gothic Tudor style in 1914, extends to 6,305 square foot and is spread over four floors.
The front door is an example of fine craftmanship within the houseAs is the carving on this fireplace
Featuring 4 reception rooms, 6 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms, the house also has a 2-car garage and enjoys views of the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and the Bay Area. It has a garden to the rear and is adjoined by a further adjacent plot on Hyde Street that has potential for a further residence.
Debi Dicello of Sotheby’s International Realty has the listing and seeks either a total of £11.4 million for the entire property or £8.8 million for the main house and £2.6 million for the adjacent 40-foot by 60-foot lot.
898 Francisco Street – The Numbers
2017 – £8.8 million ($12 million, €10 million or درهم44.1 million) for the main house plus £2.6 million ($3.5million, €2.9 million or درهم12.9 million) for the adjoining plot.
2008 – Sold for £6.3 million ($8.5 million, €7.1 million or درهم31.2 million).
2006 – Bought by a trust connected to Nicolas Cage for £6.9 million ($9.4 million, €7.9 million or درهم34.5 million).
1996 – Sold for £1.5 million ($2 million, €1.7 million or درهم7.4 million).
One-off 1971 Rolls-Royce Phantom VI cabriolet to be auctioned; originally commissioned by a British playboy turned jailbird with connections to Princess Margaret but only actually completed in 1993
Offered with an estimate of £308,000 to £462,000 ($400,000 to $600,000, €340,000 to €511,000 or درهم1.5 million to درهم2.2 million), this truly unique, one-of-one design was amazingly the final Rolls-Royce Phantom VI completed in spite of the model remaining in production until 1991. This mammoth beast of a car, surprisingly, however, has just 72 miles on its clock and is thus described as “as brand new.”
The car’s first owner, Robert ‘Bobby’ Buchanan-Michaelson, was a bit of a playboy but sadly he never got to actually drive or be driven in it. A “member of Princess Margaret’s inner circle of friends,” this Cambridge graduate was a member of the “Mayfair mammas’ lists of the season’s most eligible bachelors” until “exchanging his Edwardian hacking jacket for prison grey” in 1954 after being jailed for 12 months for an import/export fraud according to a report in Sydney’s World’s News in August that year.
Some years after being freed, ex-con Buchanan-Michaelson took part in the 10,000 mile 1968 London to Sydney Marathon in a Mercedes-Benz 280SE. In a book about the adventure he was described as both a “successful and wealthy businessman, employing a cook, a butler, a maid and a chauffeur” and as an “accomplished sportsman.” Also listed as a lavish spender, Buchannan-Michaelson was later bankrupted in November 1977 – though at the time he lived in grandeur at both at Churchbury Manor at Fairford, Gloucestershire and 26 The Vale, in Chelsea, London, SW3.
In 1970, in the period between the international car race and his bankruptcy, Buchanan-Michaelson commissioned Rolls-Royce to build him a Phantom VI. After delivery to Jack Barclay Ltd. In June 1971, the vehicle’s chassis was sent to Frua of Torino, Italy to have bodywork fitted but for some reason work stopped and it was not until 1977 – and by now with a new American owner, James Leake, and new drawings of its eventual form – that the project continued.
With Pietro Frua (1913 – 1983) retiring soon thereafter and Mr Leake’s death in 1983, the chassis passed to new ownership and it was only eventually completed as a finished motor vehicle in 1993.
That year, the four-door ‘state cabriolet’ was displayed at the Geneva Motor Show and its boxy look must have surely either have wowed or horrified visitors. It is described as having “an elaborate multi-position convertible top allows the car to be configured as a sedanca de ville, landaulet or fully open convertible.” The interior is trimmed in burled walnut with sterling silver inlays and amongst other luxuries are front and rear heating, air-conditioning, fresh-air ventilation systems, a television, a video player, a radio and a cocktail cabinet. Underneath the seats is a portable Davidoff cigar humidor and even a matching silk-lined ladies’ vanity case. What more could anyone ever need?
RM Sotheby’s will sell the Frua Phantom VI at their Monterey sale in California on 19th August and term it: “The last word in modern opulence.”
As Arabs descend on London with their eccentric convoys of cars, we select a new arrival; such things delight some and infuriate others
The time of year is upon Knightsbridge when Arabs and their supercars descend. Amongst them come exotically coloured Bentleys, Bugattis, Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Rolls-Royces, but one new arrival this season is a car we’ll henceforth just called ‘Limited’.
Featuring the number ‘LMIITED’ on a British plate, the gunmetal grey Rolls-Royce Ghost concerned features scuffed black wheels and plainly gets lackadaisically parked wherever its driver chooses. The car’s owner, maybe concerned not to lose it, even shows a picture of what we can only be himself on the vehicle’s rear window.
No doubt it’ll be the first of many eccentric machines to plague the locality in the coming months but as one regular reader remarked: “We do hope they’ll limit the noise.”
A video of ‘The Great Arab Supercar Invasion in London’ follows.
Reclusive yet charming “leisure entrepreneur” Trevor Hemmings owns over 100 racehorses, lives primarily on the Isle of Man and generously funded the SAFE centre to help victims of sexual violence in Preston, Lancashire.
This “publicity averse” self-made father of four’s Grand National winning horses have included Ballabriggs, Hedgehunter and Many Clouds and other assets in his collection have variously numbered Blackpool Tower and Preston North End Football Club. He also harbours a love for vintage Rolls-Royces and was considered a “surrogate son” by the equally shrewd late businessman and holiday camp owner Sir Fred Pontin (1906 – 2000).
Of his success, in a rare interview in 2015, this cloth capped “earthy” gent modestly remarked:
“In my business life I’ve had to climb the business and financial ladder by doing better next year than I did last year and that’s what life’s about. You have to work longer hours than everybody and you have to be on site seven days a week. Today I’m available seven days a week, people contact me seven days a week, let’s put it like that”.
Pictured above: Trevor Hemmings with Grand National winners Hedgehunter and Ballabriggs at Ballaseyr, Andreas.
Custard yellow Rolls-Royce complete with ‘0800’ numberplate takes to the streets of Knightsbridge
Each year a bevvy of Arab and Russian owned supercars arrives in London and each year they get more outlandish. An especially fine example has just descended in the form of a bright yellow Rolls-Royce Phantom coupé complete with the registration plate ‘0800’.
Spotted in Knightsbridge’s Cadogan Place on Sunday, this custard coloured creation most certainly plays homage to the vehicles designed by Nicolas Bijan Pakzad in Malibu, California. It will no doubt delight the snap-happy youngster’s on Sloane Street in the coming days but we also very much doubt the owner will be the kind to spend much of their time calling freephone numbers.
The mid-metallic blue with beige hide interior stunner, which has been “recently unearthed from a London garage”, was one of a vast collection of cars owned by Stepney born Jones – a member of Small Faces, Faces, The Who, The Law and The Jones Gang – in the 1980s. The Conservative supporting, polo club owner sold the car to Vangelis in 1993 and in an interview with Luxurious Magazine remarked: “I had to downgrade to an Audi Q7 which was big enough to hold [my six children]”.
Kenney and Jayne Jones at their Hurtwood Park Polo Club and Vangelis
Secretive Chariots of Fire score writer Vangelis – born Evanghelos Papathanassiou – kept the vehicle for 23 years yet hardly ever drove it. Despite him having left it in a London garage for decades, the vehicle “runs well” and is described by its owner as having a “very good” engine and “good” coachwork, paintwork and interior trim. Factory extras fitted to the vehicle include an electrically operated hood mechanism, electric windows and a cocktail cabinet with crystal glasses and a carafe under the dashboard.
H&H Classics have placed an estimate of £150,000 to £180,000 ($186,000 to $224,000, €173,000 to €208,000 or درهم684,000 to درهم821,000) on this “decidedly avant-garde, yet majestic” coupé and will sell it on 29th March at their Imperial War Museum Duxford sale in Cambridgeshire.
Pictured above: Trevor Hemmings with Grand National winners Hedgehunter and Ballabriggs at Ballaseyr, Andreas.
