The London apartment where Winston Churchill wrote his memoirs of the Boer Wars and held lavish parties as a young man is up for sale in Mayfair’s Mount Street for £3.5 million ($4.67 million).
The two-bedroom apartment of about 100 square metres is known as Churchill’s first “bachelor pad”, where he lived for five years in his 20s as he forged his political career, between 1900 and 1905.
Situated next to The Connaught Hotel, it is now on sale for the first time in 10 years, through Wetherell and Clifton Property Partners.
The young Churchill, who had fought in the Boer War and made his name as a foreign correspondent, was newly elected as an MP for Oldham in 1900, and leased the apartment from his cousin as a base in London for his political work.
This was where he prepared his groundbreaking maiden speech criticising the Second Boer War, a conflict between the Dutch-speaking colonies of South Africa and the British Empire.
It was also where he built the stepping stones for his spectacular political career of more than 60 years, becoming prime minister in 1940 after the outbreak of the Second World War and such a key figure in the fight against Nazi Germany.
At 105 Mount Street, the young politician entertained guests such as Lord George Hamilton, secretary of state for India, Lord Percy and Sir Arthur Stanley. He also pursued a string of doomed romances including American actress Ethel Barrymore in 1903, and heiress Muriel Wilson.
He also met his future wife in those years, then 19-year old Clementine Hozier, at a ball at Crewe House on Curzon Street – which is now the Saudi embassy – though they did not meet again for four years.
In 1904, he opposed the government’s proposed Alien’s Bill, which was designed to curb Jewish immigration. This marked the first steps in Churchill’s lifelong political support of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
The apartment sits above the Sautter, where Churchill bought his famous cigars, and is adjacent to The Connaught Hotel, which was then known as The Coburg.
In 1905 Churchill published his two-volume biography of his father, Lord Randolph Church, for which he received an advance of £8,000, equivalent to about £826,000 today.
The advance and the royalties from the books allowed Churchill to buy his own house at 12 Bolton Street in Mayfair, where he moved the next year.
The master bedroom on Mount Street has a bay window, built-in mirror wardrobes and an en suite shower room. The second en suite double bedroom was used by Churchill as a dining room.
The apartment has a separate kitchen with white stone worktops and flooring and glass-fronted display cabinets.
Churchill’s cook of more than 50 years, Georgina Landemare, made his favourite roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and consomme soup in the kitchen. He once said to her: “It is well to remember that the stomach governs the world.”
