By Asia Samachar Team | BRITAIN |
The original London home of Prince Victor Jay Duleep Singh (1866-1918), the exiled son of the last Maharaja of Lahore, is up for sale for £15.5million.
The elegant family house in The Little Boltons in South-West Kensington with five bedroom is a 5,613 sq.ft. semi-detached villa providing two large roof terraces and a 52ft rear garden.
The former London home of the exiled Crown Prince of Lahore has two formal reception rooms, an informal family/media room, a family kitchen and breakfast room, five bedrooms, including the sumptuous principal bedroom suite, a gymnasium and two staff bedrooms/studios, according to the entry at London Loves Property portal.
The Little Boltons house was originally built by builder John Spicer between 1866-68, designed by architect George Godwin junior, under the auspices of Robert Gunter, of the wealthy confectionery family who had invested their fortune in luxury property development.
The large Italianiate-style villa has a three storey brick façade with white pillared entrance portico, large stucco bay and tall windows with stucco detailing. Spicer was chosen to build the houses in The Little Boltons because he had constructed the grandest houses in Pimlico for the Grosvenor family.
Upon completion in late 1868 the house in The Little Boltons was purchased by the quasi-Government owned East India Company, and registered as an investment property to be leased for rental income. The East India Company leased the property for a peppercorn rent to the Duleep Singh family, the former Royal Maharajas of Lahore, who since the 1840s had been exiled in Britain when the East India Company and the British Raj took over their state, according to the artice.
Born on the 10th July 1866 at a 99 Onslow Square in London (his godmother was Queen Victoria), and educated at Eton College and Cambridge University, Prince Victor Jay Duleep Singh was the son of Sir Duleep Singh, the last Maharaja of Lahore (1838-1893), who in 1849 had been deposed and sent into exile in London. The East India Company providing the displaced Royal family with “grace-and-favour” London homes which the East India Company acquired in The Boltons, Wimbledon and Roehampton, leased to the Indian Royals at a peppercorn rent. The family also had use of a 17,000 acre country house, Elveden Hall, in Suffolk.
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