Princess Margaret, Lord Snowdon’s country retreat on the market for first time in history at $5.3 million
The former home of Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones, better known as Lord Snowdon's former country retreat, is on the market for the first time in the home's history.
Known as The Old House, the home, which was gifted to Lord Snowdon by his uncle, designer Oliver Messel, prior to his marriage to Princess Margaret, is listed with Blue Book Agency for about $5.3 million.
Originally built in 1481, the cottage in West Sussex came into the possession of the Messel family in 1890 and was passed down for generations before Oliver gifted it to the royal couple.
Upon receiving the 5,750-square-foot home on the 5.52-acre property, Lord Snowdon transformed the dilapidated home into a private retreat away from the public, often hosting many famous faces, including actor Peter Sellers, ballerina Dame Margot Fonteyn, Bianca Jagger, financier Sir Evelyn de Rothschild and more.
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"What Lord Snowdon created here was not simply a private home but an extraordinary creative retreat," Theo James-Wright, director at Blue Book Agency, said. "This was a place where royalty mixed with artists, actors, writers and designers, where some of the most influential figures of the 20th century gathered behind closed doors. Very few houses can genuinely claim to have witnessed such a remarkable chapter of British cultural history."
The rich history surrounding this house inspired an episode in season three of the popular Netflix series, "The Crown."
Some of the elements Snowdon brought to the home include a redesigned kitchen, a balcony salvaged from Ascot Racecourse's Royal Box during refurbishment works, a lake he created and a "time capsule of royal, cultural and family life" made up of newspaper clippings detailing royal scandals and major events, put together by Snowdon himself.
The estate features a main house with six bedrooms, as well as a pool house which can be used as a guest suite. In addition, the grounds include a garden office, library, tractor shed and other amenities.
While this is the first time the home has been put on the market publicly, Snowdon did sell it privately in 2003, and the current owners purchased it off-market in 2005.
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"The fact that this is the first time the property has ever been publicly offered for sale makes this a genuinely rare moment," James-Wright said. "Opportunities to acquire houses with this level of provenance, architectural significance and cultural importance simply do not come along very often."
Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon first met in 1958, and their friendship quickly turned into a romance, with the palace announcing their engagement in February 1960.
They were married just a few months later in May 1960 at Westminster Abbey. Their wedding was the first royal wedding to be televised, attracting an estimated 300 million viewers worldwide.
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Over the course of their marriage, the couple welcomed two children: their son David Armstrong-Jones in November 1961, and their daughter Lady Sarah Chatto in May 1964.
They were married for 16 years before announcing their separation in March 1976, later finalizing their divorce in July 1978. Despite ending their marriage, the two are said to have remained good friends in the following years.
Following their divorce, Lord Snowdon married Lucy Lindsay-Hogg in 1978, while Princess Margaret never remarried.
Princess Margaret died in February 2002 at the age of 71 due to a stroke, after her health began to decline in the 1990s. Lord Snowdon died in January 2017 at the age of 86.
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