DIRK BOGARDE starred with Jean Kent in the 1950 whodunnit The Woman in Question. For the two years before, Bogarde was living at No 44 Chester Row, Belgravia, with a rescued cat called Cliff. While he was there Bogarde received his first contract from J. Arthur Rank, which set him on the way to stardom. The house is now for sale with Knight Frank (020-7591 8600) for £2.1 million. Bogarde snootily called Chester Row “a shabby canyon” but it has clearly spruced itself up: houses can now fetch as much as £6 million.

THE OWNERS of Seton Castle, featured last week, wish it known that many people helped to renovate the property, particularly at Whytock & Reid and the Musselburgh cabinet maker Michael Hart. If the house fetches anything near the £15 million asking price — a record for Scotland — then Mr Hart will be owed a few drams in thanks.

AT RATHER MORE of a snip, Mullucks Wells (01371 872117) is selling a 15ft by 7ft 4in nuclear bunker in Essex for £10,000. Presumably whoever buys it will be the only owners in the land hoping that there will not be a boom this year.

A ONE-ROOM bunker would seem like a palace to the 52,000 young people who are estimated to be homeless in Britain, so an initiative by the online property advertising service Coolcaves.com is to be praised. The website has said that it will donate £20 from each £95 flat fee that it receives to the youth homelessness charity Centrepoint.

KNIGHT FRANK has marked the opening of its office in Kingston upon Thames by sponsoring a scholarship for the local rowing club. From September boys under the age of 14 will be eligible for an award at the club, which has nurtured oarsmen such as Kieron West, who won gold at the Sydney Olympics. Applications for the award must be in by next Friday. It must make a change for estate agents to be more interested in oars than sails.

Patrick Kidd
patrick.kidd@thetimes.co.uk

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