Safe as houses in Knightsbridge

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Britain's richest female artist, Tracey Emin, has just bought her third property in trendy Spitalfields, east London.

The five-bedroom, Grade II listed Georgian town house, with a one-bedroom staff cottage, cost £925,000 through Tarn and Tarn. It retains many original features, including a Huguenot silk weaver's loft.

Eighteen months ago Emin paid £380,000 for a two-bedroom Georgian-style house around the corner, which sources say she is selling privately to friends. But she will continue to use her splendid 2,000sq ft artist's studio off Brick Lane.

Spitalfields' best properties, in Wilkes Street, Fournier Street and Princelet Street, were built in the 1720s for Huguenot silk weavers fleeing Catholic persecution in France. Now artists such as Jake and Dinos Chapman and Gilbert and George have helped transform this previously dilapidated area into the art world's answer to Notting Hill.

Former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell is the latest celebrity to view a penthouse currently being refurbished in Rutland Court, Knightsbridge. Chesterfield is asking £3,975,000 for the three-bedroom, three reception room property, with two south-facing terraces. "A major attraction is the security barrier at the end of the road," says one resident. After a burglary last summer Geri did not return to her rented flat in Holland Park and, following a spell living in five-star London hotels, has taken refuge in the flat owned by interior designer Nina Campbell in Chelsea.

Anyone paying £2.5 million for a Victorian Gothic folly in St John's Wood will also be buying a slice of Sixties nostalgia. The rambling four-bedroom house belongs to London club-owner Johnny Gold, who founded Tramp in 1969, and was formerly owned by advertising guru Charles Saatchi. "Our client is selling because he wants to travel more," explains agent Aston Chase. "But he intends to buy a smaller apartment in the same area." The property includes a chapel-like reception room and a heated swimming pool.

Millionaire zoo keeper Damian Aspinall has at last found a buyer for his vast ground and basement maisonette in Cadogan Square, Knightsbridge. The two-bedroom flat, with a 46ft drawing room and a conservatory, was on the market at £2.95 million through Aylesford. Aspinall and his girlfriend, television presenter Donna Air, recently moved into a converted church close by.

The sound of Cliff Richard and The Shadows once echoed round a Georgian-style house in Marylebone, now for sale at £495,000. The two-bedroom property was a recording studio, and then a photographic studio rented by royal snapper Lord Snowdon. "It has now been converted back to a house again and has a very contemporary feel," explains agent John D Wood. "It also has planning permission to build an extra floor."

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