Preparing for a hasty Brexit?
It’s all change at David and Samantha Cameron’s family home in chichi North Kensington. My mole tells me that the tenants who had been renting the west London property have moved out and builders have gone in to make renovations. No news yet on whether the four-bedder will be put up for rent again, though word on the street is that improvement works will go on for some time. Perhaps the PM is trying to hedge his bets and keep the property empty, in case everything goes pear-shaped after the European referendum on June 23 and he and his family are evicted from 10 Downing Street...
The Camerons bought their des res for £1.125m in 2006 and spent a reported £600,000 on a basement excavation and other improvements by the eco-architecture firm Michaelis Boyd. The red-brick house is now thought to be mortgage-free and worth about £2m. The couple also have a pad in Cameron’s Witney constituency, for which they paid £650,000 in 2001.
A view to a killing
Violent scenes notwithstanding, you could almost mistake The Night Manager, the BBC’s lavish Sunday-night thriller, for an upmarket property brochure. Thus far the £3m-per-episode budget has stretched to stunning shots of the Matterhorn and Devon’s Hartland Peninsula, including Blackpool Mill Cottage, rented by Tom Hiddleston’s character, Jonathan Pine (it costs up to £1,600 a week; hartlandabbey.com).
Best of all was the jaw-dropping fortress in Mallorca owned by the arms dealer and “worst man in the world” Richard Roper, played by Hugh Laurie . The 17th-century fort in Pollenca has two pools, seven villas and more than 25,000 sq ft of grounds. It was bought for up to £35m in 2011 by a mysterious British banker — his identity is surely an enigma worthy of a whole new le Carré tale.
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Leave your hat on
They are famously sworn enemies who haven’t spoken a word to each other in two decades, but Sir Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck were once pally enough to buy a country pile together. The crooners bought Socknersh Manor, a vast six-bedroom house near the East Sussex village of Burwash, in the 1960s, while at the height of their fame. The rug-chested Welshman scored a No 1 smash with It’s Not Unusual, while the Hump had a mega hit with Release Me.
The improbable pair spent weekends partying at the grade II listed property, which now has a coach house with entertainment room, a pool, stable block and 56 acres of green, green grass. It’s yours for £4.75m.
01892 515035, knightfrank.co.uk
