Savills is selling three connected terrace houses in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, on behalf of Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich. The estate agency is keen for potential buyers to know the history they are buying into, with the street having had Sir Thomas More, Sir Mick Jagger, artist James Whistler and Diana Mitford as residents.
In case some details may have been omitted from the Savills brochure, the Londoner thinks the most interesting house of the three is the one owned by the late Guinness heir and Tory minister Paul Channon. He shared a birth date with his school friend the Duke of Kent, so the Queen came to their joint 70th birthday in the house. One room has a mural by Augustus John, and there’s a huge drawing room for entertaining.
But not everyone wants to be entertained. IRA chiefs Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness once enjoyed a day out from Long Kesh prison for negotiations with Channon and Willie Whitelaw when they were Northern Ireland ministers. Channon laid on special supplies of his family stout to please his Irish visitors but they refused to touch it, not because they might get tiddly but because they thought it might be drugged.
