Boris flogs £3.7m home he shared with wife Marina

THERE can be few London houses which have seen as many comings and goings as the handsome, five- storey, Grade IIlisted Islington residence which was, until recently, the marital home Boris Johnson shared with his long- suffering second wife, barrister Marina Wheeler.

But that chapter in the Prime Minister’s volatile domestic life is now conclusively over: I can disclose that he has exchanged on the sale of his home which was on the market for £3.75 million. He is expected to divide the proceeds with his estranged wife.

Estate agent Chestertons declined to name the purchaser or the final price, but Marina, in particular, will be relieved by the sale. ‘She’s had a terrible time,’ a friend tells me.

Presumably, a blue plaque will one day adorn the building, recording that Boris lived there from 2009 until the middle of last year.

That was when he and Marina — whom he married in 1993, 12 days after finalising his divorce from his first wife, Allegra Mostyn-Owen — announced that they, too, were divorcing after Marina learned of her husband’s tendresse for Carrie Symonds.

But a brief inscription on a blue plaque could not begin to summarise the various ‘scrapes’ that he experienced during his decade there. Only a year after Boris, Marina and their four children moved in, Marina threw him out ‘like a tom cat’. This followed claims that he had fathered a daughter by Helen Macintyre, a buxom brunette who, at the time, was living with Pierre Rolin, a Canadian businessman.

Marina later allowed him to return. It seemed that Boris had reconciled himself to marital orthodoxy, and three years ago the champagne flowed at a party he held at the house to celebrate Marina’s appointment as a Queen’s Counsel.

But then he encountered Carrie Symonds, now 31, with whom he briefly shared a £675,000 flat in Camberwell — where he sloshed red wine over a sofa, incurring Carrie’s wrath and inspiring a neighbour to call the police — before moving to Downing Street.

The only addition to their family, so far, is Dilyn the dog.