EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Drama as the Duke of Roxburghe’s stepmother puts the family’s London home on the market for £4 million

As the country’s aristocrats make plans for the summer social Season, the 11th Duke of Roxburghe may need to book a room at a Travelodge. For I hear that Charles Innes-Ker’s stepmother is selling the family’s London pied-a-terre.

The move by Virginia, the Dowager Duchess of Roxburghe, follows her exit from magnificent Floors Castle, the family’s ancestral seat in Scotland, after the death of her husband, Guy, the 10th Duke.

The three-bedroom flat in South Kensington, which was registered in Virginia’s name, has been put on the market for £3.8million. It was bought for £481,500 in 2007.

‘This will put the cat among the pigeons,’ a friend tells me. ‘Charlie and his family would often use the flat, particularly to do the Season.’

Estate agent photographs show that the flat, in a ‘sought-after address’, is tastefully decorated, with framed family photos on display throughout its bedrooms, two reception rooms and three bathrooms. The ground floor has a modern kitchen with French doors leading to a terrace.

Charles Innes-Ker’s stepmother Virginia, the Dowager Duchess of Roxburghe has put the family’s London flat up for sale. Pictured: Guy, the 10th Duke and his wife Virginia at the 24th Cartier Racing Awards held at The Dorchester in 2014

Once described as Britain’s most eligible bachelor, the Duke, 43, is an Army pal of Prince Harry. In 2021, the Duke married Annie Green (pictured), the stepdaughter of South African mining tycoon Patrick Quirk

Floors Castle near Kelso in the Scottish Borders has been the seat of the Roxburghes since 1721

Charlie has a daughter, Eugenie, aged seven, with his ex-girlfriend, the Iranian fashion designer Morvarid Sahafi (pictured together in 2015), a friend of Annie

Once described as Britain’s most eligible bachelor, the Duke, 43, is an Army pal of Prince Harry. Charlie inherited the title, as well as Floors Castle, in Roxburghshire, and an estimated £100million estate when his father died in 2019. Floors is where Prince Andrew proposed to Sarah Ferguson.

In 2021, the Duke married Annie Green, the stepdaughter of South African mining tycoon Patrick Quirk. Annie gave birth to a son and heir, Freddie, in March.

Charlie has a daughter, Eugenie, aged seven, with his ex-girlfriend, the Iranian fashion designer Morvarid Sahafi, a friend of Annie.

He was previously married to Lord Beaverbrook’s elder daughter, Charlotte Aitken, who works as a wedding planner, but they separated just months after their wedding.

However sad Charlie is at the loss of his London pad, I hope he doesn’t follow the example of his grandfather’s wife, Mary. She refused to leave the family estate after her husband, the 9th Duke, had an affair. 

She locked herself in a suite for six weeks to avoid eviction. The duchess’s suite within the 100-room fairy-tale castle had telephone, electricity and gas all turned off, and the duke even attempted to cut off her water supply.

The Earl of Oxford and Asquith took a bullet in Parliament yesterday when Labour MP Barry Sheerman accused the Earl, a former MI6 chief in Moscow, of being ‘a lobbyist for a man in the U.S. who is believed to be involved in Russian gang crime’. 

Sheerman urged the Government to ‘look into this issue’ as ‘everybody knows there is a group in the Upper House that is very close to Russia’. 

Blowhard Barry may not have noticed that the Earl, who helped double agent Oleg Gordievsky to defect from the Soviet Union in 1985, is a critic of Vladimir Putin, calling him ‘delusional’ and deploring ‘sadistic’ Russian troops in a Lords speech earlier this year. 

Or does Sheerman think the Earl is operating under deep cover?

Labour MP Barry Sheerman (pictured in 2021) accused the Earl of Oxford and Asquith, a former MI6 chief in Moscow, of being ‘a lobbyist for a man in the U.S. who is believed to be involved in Russian gang crime’

Comic Katherine’s gourmet gripes in Britain

British food is no laughing matter for Canadian comic Katherine Ryan.

‘I dislike the perplexity of putting everything [in] a pastry or a pie,’ she tells me at the Bafta Nominees’ party at the V&A museum in London.

‘The war is over and it doesn’t have to be leftovers any more — you’re a real booming economy,’ says the star of Channel 4 hit 8 Out Of 10 Cats, who moved to the UK in 2008. 

The 40-year-old adds: ‘You don’t have to pretend that we still just have leavened flour.

‘I don’t like British food, and [Britons] don’t like their spice, which hurts my spirit.

‘I don’t like sausage rolls, I don’t see the need to pickle an egg — there are loads of fermented foods like kimchi.

‘We’re citizens of the world, there is multiculturalism from foods that you can enjoy.’

Canadian comic Katherine Ryan attends Bafta Nominees’ party at the V&A museum in London on April 24

Ryan went to the event with her childhood sweetheart Bobby Kootstra who she wed in 2019

Why Garner’s going solo on the beach

Made In Chelsea star turned swimwear designer Kimberley Garner is now expanding her range to include a line for men that will let them match their trunks with women’s bikinis.

Sadly, the property developer’s daughter, 33, no longer has a boyfriend with whom to pair her swimwear on the beach.

‘I’ve just broken up with someone,’ she tells me at the screening of new romantic comedy The Idea Of You at the Ham Yard Hotel in Soho, London. 

‘Right decision — and I am in a really good place.’

Last summer, I reported that she was going out with financier Andreas Anthis.

Made In Chelsea star turned swimwear designer Kimberley Garner is now expanding her range to include a line for men that will let them match their trunks with women’s bikinis

Former world heavyweight champion Mike Tyson is preparing to slip his boxing gloves back on aged 57 to fight YouTuber Jake Paul this summer. 

Could Alan Sugar, 77, follow Tyson into the ring? I ask only because the tycoon has been seen training at the Bronx boxing gym in Camberwell, South London. 

It’s owned by last year’s winner of his show The Apprentice, Marnie Swindells, 29. ‘Lord Sugar has been to the gym,’ she says. 

‘He’d be a great boxer as he’s strong-minded — very firm,’ she tells me at the Bronx launch party. 

Former world heavyweight champion Mike Tyson is preparing to slip his boxing gloves back on aged 57 to fight YouTuber Jake Paul this summer

Alan Sugar has been spotted at gym owned by last year’s winner of The Apprentice, Marnie Swindells (left), 29

She surprised friends by announcing that her fourth child, born earlier this month, was the result of surrogacy.

Now Princess Beatrice’s chum Alice Naylor-Leyland, 38, has explained why she took the baby girl — named Margot — from her surrogate mother right away.

‘It’s important to have ‘skin to skin’ as part of the bonding process and to help boost the baby’s immune system,’ Alice explains online from California, where commercial surrogacy is almost routine.

In Britain, surrogacy is permitted only if the mother is unpaid, barring ‘reasonable’ expenses. Another difference, Alice adds, is that, in America, the baby ‘has to spend 24 hours in the hospital’.

Young Margot is lavishly blessed. Her father, Tom Naylor-Leyland, is heir to a baronetcy and the £176 million Fitzwilliam landowning fortune.

Margot may also inherit the unquenchable spirit of her great-grandmother, Bindy Lambton, who departed life singing a 1940s song about ‘Cocaine Bill and Morphine Sue / Strolling down the avenue two by two’.

Alice Naylor-Leyland (centre) is a long-time friend of Princess Beatrice (left), and has been a Vogue columnist, a model and a fashion muse. Both pictured in 2022

Tom Naylor-Leyland and Alice attend a cocktail party in November 2023

‘It’s important to have ‘skin to skin’ as part of the bonding process and to help boost the baby’s immune system,’ Alice explains online from California. Pictured: The baby appeared on her Instagram

Modern motherhood is no easier than it used to be, claims TV historian Suzannah Lipscomb. 

‘It’s an amazing, awe-inspiring and wonderful thing to be a mother, but it’s also entirely mundane and boring and irritating,’ says Suzannah, 45, who has a five-year-old son with actor Tom Hutch. 

‘It’s a choice I’m making on an almost daily basis. When my child comes back from school he says, “Mummy, come and play with me”. 

‘And I have to say, “I’ve got to go back to work”. Most of the time, you’d actually rather be with your child than at some event that’s going to further your career.’ 

She adds: ‘It’s extraordinary to read a book [on motherhood] from the 1930s that feels so relevant.’ 

Modern motherhood is no easier than it used to be, claims TV historian Suzannah Lipscomb