As they prepare for life after Downing Street, Boris and Carrie Johnson have reportedly bought a five-bedroom family home on the border of Herne Hill and Dulwich Village in south east London.
Removal vans were seen outside their Number 11 apartment last week, with Mr Johnson preparing to leave both his post as Prime Minister and that famous gold wallpaper ahead of his successor being announced today.
The couple’s new property is on a leafy street where houses often sell for £3 million plus, according to the i, with Westminster just a half-hour commute away.
Before settling in SE24, the Johnsons are thought to have been splitting their time between Chequers — a 16th-century grace-and-favour home in Buckinghamshire —and Downing Street.
They will have been wondering where to set up their next family home ever since Mr Johnson’s resignation announcement on July 7, and their decision to list their Camberwell townhouse flat for £1.6 million earlier this month.
The Downing Street flat
The Johnson’s 2020 renovation of their current home in Downing Street came under intense scrutiny after it emerged Tory donor Lord Brownlow had paid for some of the refurbishment.
A leaked copy of a quote for works, obtained by The Independent, shows initial plans for the refurbishment would have seen a total cost of over £200,000. The infamous ‘gold’ wallpaper was expected to cost in the region of £2,000 on the £208,104 estimate.
The final cost of the project is thought to have been closer to £112,000, however. The Cabinet Office has a £30,000 budget each year for the upkeep of 11 Downing Street. The additional costs involved in the refurbishment have since been paid for by Mr Johnson.
As the Cabinet Office has part paid for some of the work and furnishings it remains to be seen what the Johnsons will be able to take with them to their new home when a new Conservative party leader is announced.
Here are the top contenders in the outgoing Prime Minster’s property portfolio.
The Camberwell townhouse
The couple were living in a flat in a restored Grade II-listed house overlooking Brunswick Park in Camberwell, south London, when Mr Johnson became Prime Minister in July 2019.
A month earlier, neighbours called police over reports of a domestic disturbance.
Since the couple lived there they have not only expanded their family by two – with children Wilfred and Romy now two and seven months old respectively — they have also bought a townhouse in the same area.
On 19 July 2019, the couple paid £1.2 million for a four-bedroom, red-brick Victorian terrace home arranged over three floors.
It spans more than 2,000sq ft, with two reception rooms, four double bedrooms and two bathrooms.
Earler this month, the couple listed the Camberwell townhouse for sale. It’s had a fresh lick of paint, among other updates, and sported a new price tag of £1.6 million.
The Johnsons revealed their ‘late 2019’ engagement in February 2020, when they also announced that they were expecting their first child together.
Mr Johnson is thought to have remortgaged and rented out his Camberwell and Thame properties to pay for the 11 Downing Street flat renovations.
The Oxfordshire farmhouse
The Old Farm House in Thame, Oxfordshire, is a Grade II-listed four-bedroom home. A chocolate-box cottage, the house has a grand fireplace, wooden beams and views across open Oxfordshire countryside. There’s also a separate stone annexe, a tennis court and swimming pool.
The property was bought in 2003 by Boris Johnson and his then wife Marina Wheeler for £640,000.
At the time Mr Johnson was MP for Henley. The couple separated in 2018 and the title of the property was changed into Mr Johnson’s sole name in February 2020, the same month a family court judge gave Ms Wheeler permission to apply for a divorce decree.
In February 2020, when the title was changed, the value of the property was stated as £1.25 million.
Old Farm House came up for rent last April for £4,250 a month, unfurnished, for a period of at least one year.
A let was agreed in May last year so, should the tenancy be nearing an end, the Johnsons could choose to make Old Farm House their countryside bolthole if and when they leave Downing Street.
The Thame home is only 30 minutes’ drive from Chequers – the Prime Minister’s country residence – where Mr Johnson continued his recovery from Covid-19 after being discharged from hospital in April 2000 and where he is thought to be spending the final few weeks of his premiership.
The 16th-century Buckinghamshire manor is a grace-and-favour home used to entertain guests by the Prime Minister during their term in office.
Mr Johnson’s successor will be announced today at 12.30pm.
