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Old Mill House, Windsow


Cactus

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Just wondering if anyone has any information on the Old Milll House. Does Jimmy still own the property, and if not, when did he sell it?

I have some interesting public record documents regarding the property and wondering if any of it is relevant to Page.

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Sorry, I'm not exactly sure--if memory serves, it was some time in the 90s.

p.s. As I was just now googling to see if I could find a date, it came up as being presently for sale.

You're right, being sold by Savills for £2.5m, formerly the property of Michael Caine and Jimmy Page, it says. No mention of Bonzo though, of course...

I wouldn't call it an attractive place. The interiors are a bit ghastly.

I don't understand the recent trend in the UK of people buying 18th and 19th century manor houses, ripping the period interiors out (some of them quite crafted) to put in horrendous open-plan living spaces.

I mean they'll rip out 3 or 4 rooms just to stick in an open-plan kitchen, dining and sitting room, and all you're left with is a room the size of a warehouse, with no craftsmanship, just white plaster walls and ceiling and some recessed lighting. I can understand it in a cramped city house, but in a large manor house in the country, it looks just terrible, a massive boring huge white room that you have to try to fill up with furniture

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Is this it? (second one down) Mill Lane, Berkshire

It's very beautiful - I love the swimming pool and the river view. I still prefer Jimmy's old Pangbourne house though (alas, equally out of my price range)

Yes that's it - the grounds were very nice but NOWHERE near as fantastic as Plumpton Place or Pangbourne.

The house itself had a newer extension round the back attached to the actual mill house. There were also 2 other outhouses in the grounds, that, themselves could have been houses in their own right

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Very cool. About the other structures on the property, I came across this local government doc from 2006 that mentions them: http://www.rbwm.gov.uk/web/meetings_060816...ntrol_panel.htm

I don't know if Pagey was the owner at the time, but apparently someone complained about repairs made to one or more of these outlying buildings. The owner (never identified by name) responds that he cannot build a required garage due to an ongoing legal dispute with his next-door neighbor over a common wall. I remembered in the book Follow the Legend: Albion There & Back, the authors told about a cranky old man who lived next to Jimmy & sued him because the trees on Jimmy's property were causing cement damage on the neighbour's wall or walkway.

Jimmy's apparently bought a mansion in the Thames Valley now; it was in The Guardian on Saturday.

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I remembered in the book Follow the Legend: Albion There & Back, the authors told about a cranky old man who lived next to Jimmy & sued him because the trees on Jimmy's property were causing cement damage on the neighbour's wall or walkway.

I don't know how fair it is to characterize Dudley Burnside, the neighbor in question,

as just a cranky old man. He was a pilot in the RAF during World War II and felt slighted by Jimmy that his requests to have trees which border their properties cut down were rebuffed. This went to court in October 1999. Mr. Burnside lost the case and had to pay nearly $40,000 in legal fees, which lead to some harsh words from him in the press.

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Guitar god runs out of space for £1m tapestry

Maev Kennedy

Saturday March 15, 2008

The Guardian

Even Jimmy Page, the Led Zeppelin guitarist who like God has many mansions, has finally run out of wall space. His gigantic Pre-Raphaelite tapestry, designed by Burne-Jones and woven at William Morris's workshop, has been rolled up and in storage for years, and will now be sold by Sotheby's, estimated at up to £1m.

It is over seven metres long, the climactic vision of the Holy Grail from what was originally a set of six monumental tapestries of scenes from Arthurian legend. Morris described them as "our largest and most important work", and they took three weavers two years to complete. The tapestry was last seen in public at the V&A museum's exhibition on William Morris, when Page was between houses: he sold the Windsor mansion where it hung in the billiard room, then bought the house back again, and has now sold it again. He also owns the eccentric 13th century-style Tower House in Kensington, designed by William Burges, but has apparently run out of space there too.

He has now bought another Thames Valley mansion, designed by the architect Edwin Lutyens with a Gertrude Jekyll garden, but as his friend and art dealer Paul Reeves explained yesterday, that has wood-panelled walls - so he couldn't possibly hang the tapestry.

Page has had one of the most expensive rock god habits, of collecting museum-quality Pre-Raphaelite and Arts and Crafts pieces, for decades. Reeves, who was a star-struck teenager the first time he met Page backstage at a Led Zeppelin concert in California in the 1960s, says it wasn't just the art which appealed in the Summer of Love. "The Bohemian lifestyles of the artists themselves were absolutely in tune with the zeitgeist of our own times," he said.

In the same auction next week Page is selling some Burne-Jones stained glass panels, a gigantic set of Arthurian round table and chairs, and two sideboards big enough to convert into bunk beds.

The tapestry has only been sold twice before, on both occasions by Sotheby's, once by the heirs of the original owner, and then when Page bought it from the heirs of the Duke of Westminster.

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I don't know how fair it is to characterize Dudley Burnside, the neighbor in question,

as just a cranky old man. He was a pilot in the RAF during World War II and felt slighted by Jimmy that his requests to have trees which border their properties cut down were rebuffed. This went to court in October 1999. Mr. Burnside lost the case and had to pay nearly $40,000 in legal fees, which lead to some harsh words from him in the press.

I heard he was a cranky old man too. Doesnt it all have to do with whos property the trees were on?

Kensington?

:lol:

donkey

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One point of contention was the tree roots, which had crossed over the property lines.

Was Tower House featured much in that book that came out recently about William Burges? The one Jimmy was doing some publicity for.

By the way, what year did he actually buy that place? I've heard from 1972 up to 1974.

The only things I know about the house is that he bought it off Richard Harris, who bought it, i think i read, in 1969...although I do know the house had been sitting empty between 1962 and 1966. And before 1967, it was actually No. 9 Melbury Road...

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Was Tower House featured much in that book that came out recently about William Burges? The one Jimmy was doing some publicity for.

By the way, what year did he actually buy that place? I've heard from 1972 up to 1974.

The only things I know about the house is that he bought it off Richard Harris, who bought it, i think i read, in 1969...although I do know the house had been sitting empty between 1962 and 1966. And before 1967, it was actually No. 9 Melbury Road...

Jimmy outbid David Bowie on Tower House in June 1973. This was during the break on the 1973 North American tour. I've heard Evelyn Waugh's son Aubrey refused to sell

Jimmy some of the furnishings but I haven't quite gotten a clear answer on that yet.

The original address was indeed 9 Melbury Road.

Coincidentally, Burges designed Cardiff Castle, which Jimmy attempted to tour in December 1972 while in town with Led Zeppelin. Unfortunately, when he knocked on the door he was informed it was closed for renovations. Jimmy did revisit Cardiff Castle

in May 2004 and lent a wardrobe to their Burgess exhibition in addition to commenting

on the William Burges book.

Unfortunately, I have yet to obtain a copy of the William Burges book published in 2004.

It's never too late for someone to send one along to me as a gift :lol:

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