Pippa eyes up country estate next to her mum
AN ESCAPE to the country might mean a little thatched cottage with h roses over the door for most of us, but Pippa Middleton could soon be e making a much grander move out of the city – to a 72-acre estate.
Pippa and hedge-fund billionaire husband James Matthews are said to be close to buying the land which, handily, is just a stone’s throw from her parents’ £5 million mansion in idyllic Bucklebury, Berkshire.
The couple currently live in a £17 million six-bedroom home in London. The huge countryside site they are said to have their eye on is known as Bucklebury Farm Park and operates as a safari park and petting zoo.
Originally on sale at £1.5 million, agents Knight Frank have confirmed it is under offer, but refused to comment further citing client confidentiality. A spokesman for James, 45, and Pippa, 37 – younger sister of the Duchess of Cambridge – described the potential purchase as no more than a ‘ business opportunity’ for Mr Matthews, denying the couple had any plans to move there.
But Bucklebury has been awash with speculation ever since Farm Park was put up for sale in October then suddenly withdrawn after less than a week. A villager living in neighbouring Stanford Dingley commented: ‘We heard that the site had been offered to the Middletons before it went on the market.’
And at Bucklebury’s interior design store, Lynda Tillotson said t he rumours hadn’t just ‘come out of thin air’. ‘It makes sense that Pippa and James would want to be close. It’s the perfect location for them to build a family home,’ she added.
And it would no doubt delight the Middleton parents, Carole, 65, and Michael, 71, to have Pippa, James and their two-year-old son Arthur on their doorstep. The family home for their other grandchildren – Prince George, seven, Princess Charlotte, five, and two-year-old Prince Louis – is 150 miles away in Norfolk.
Current owner of Farm Park is Old Etonian Rupert Hartley-Russell, the son of Bucklebury’s Lord of the Manor, Willie Hartley-Russell. He declined to comment.