Members of the jury, I wish to present — as Exhibits A and B — evidence of the madness that is the UK property market. You might remember Exhibit A from last week: a one-bedroom basement flat in central London, for sale at just under £900,000. Today, I visit Exhibit B. The asking price is only £100,000 more, but for that you get seven bedrooms, an acre of garden, and ceilings so high that the RAF is on permanent standby in case a light bulb needs changing. In fact, there is only one drawback, as far as the market is concerned: it’s in Torquay.

This seaside town in Devon sells itself as “the English Riviera”, and there are indeed places — if the sun’s out — that you could mistake for the south of France. There are palm trees on the seafront, and I can recommend the sea view. Yet other parts of town have that slightly down-at-heel atmosphere of the 1950s seaside resort: rows of brightly painted boards advertising Victorian terraced houses now operating as small hotels or B&Bs.

Disraeli’s House is on top of a hill called Mount Braddon, where a builder called Thomas Rossiter put up a collection of large white villas. In a perfect world, each would have had its own panama-hatted Joss Ackland and summer-frocked Greta Scacchi to take Pimm’s on the veranda and plot the murder of the eccentric old lady owner. As it was, Disraeli’s House had to make do with the eccentric old lady.

You see, Disraeli’s House is not quite what it says on the tin. Yes, it briefly belonged to Benjamin Disraeli, the Conservative PM whose battle with his Liberal opponent, William Gladstone, defined 19th-century politics. But he never actually lived here.

The house was built in 1828 on the orders of a widow called Sarah Brydges-Willyams, who apparently used to walk two large and ferocious dogs of an evening. In her eighties, she wrote to Disraeli to ask if she might leave him a large amount of money. She admired his politics and believed, wrongly, that they were distantly related.

Disraeli, a martyr to debt all his life, could see no reason why not, and the Disraelis became great friends with Mrs Brydges-Willyams. “We propose to take your mountain fortress by assault this morning, and early — about noon,” he once wrote on a visit to Torquay.

Dizzy, as he was known, apparently admired the primroses in his new friend’s garden, and presented her with raspberry canes from Hatfield House, home of his colleague, Lord Salisbury. “We still have primroses,” says the current owner, Garry Collins, “but not raspberries.” According to local lore, the Primrose League — a Conservative campaign group in memory of Disraeli — was created under a cedar tree in the garden (although it seems more likely that the league was founded, as claimed elsewhere, at the Carlton Club).

Disraeli inherited the house (and a handy £30,000) when Mrs BrydgesWillyams died in 1863, but sold it two years later. Disraeli, it seems, didn’t like the seaside, and once wrote from Bournemouth: “I detest this place — it is a large, overgrown watering place, almost as bad as Torquay.”

The house has enjoyed mixed fortunes since then. For years, it was called the Mount Braddon Hotel. Morecambe and Wise apparently stayed at a bungalow, now demolished, in the grounds. By the 1970s, however, the building was virtually derelict, and was saved only by a campaign to have it Grade II-listed.

It then became a restaurant called, inevitably, Dizzy’s. Collins (a former quantity surveyor, psychology student and creperie owner) bought the house in 1981 for £175,000 and ran it as a restaurant and holiday flats.

In 1988, he decided to close the restaurant and develop more flats. That plan was scuppered by the recession of the early 1990s, but in 2000 he sold half the two acres of grounds to a developer, who has put up several mews-style properties in what would have been the back garden. They’re in the same style as the main house, and don’t intrude, but if you’re looking for the privacy of a gated residence, this is not for you (even though the property has wrought-iron gates and a drive).

When I visited, there was scaffolding over the front door, because Collins has been fixing the shutters. He has been gradually preparing the house for sale (“It’s too big, really, now the children have left home”), and that is reflected in the decor, which is very much magnolia and beige carpets (wooden floorboards downstairs).

It’s laid out over three floors, with three moderate-sized bedrooms at the top, one off the half-landing and three larger bedrooms on the first floor. Downstairs, there’s a dining room, a drawing room off the kitchen and a conservatory. The house appears to be have been decorated in the knowledge that a new owner would probably want to rip it out and start again (see magnolia and beige, above), and nowhere is this more obvious than the kitchen.

Me: “Who’s the kitchen by?” [Smart, modern, dark wood.] Garry: [With a look of complete astonishment] “Er, it’s MFI.”

You will be pleased to know that Daisy Waugh, a woman who would never be impressed by an MFI kitchen, returns next week; daisy.waugh@sunday-times.co.uk

Disraeli’s House, Torquay, £1m

What is it? A Grade II-listed, 19th-century, seven-bedroom villa

Where is it? Torquay, Devon

Who is selling it? Torquay Real Estate; 01803 327287, torquayrealestate.com

Times recommends

• Second homes: credit crunch casualty or money-spinner?
• How I built my own sliding house
• Top 10 incentives for house buyers