Jemima Goldsmith, ex-wife of former Pakistan cricket captain Imran Khan has bought one of the finest estates in Oxfordshire set on 466 acres of land for £15m.
The Kiddington Hall, a “mini stately home” is a grade II-listed nine-bedroom house, with five reception rooms, an orangery and a tennis court.
A property source told The Sunday Times : “It was a romance. She just fell in love with it.”
The property is bordered by Blenheim Palace, ancestral home to the Dukes of Marlborough, and estates owned by the Saudi royal family and the Wills family, who made their fortune in tobacco.
Kiddington Hall, which had also attracted interest from Simon Cowell, the television impresario, was last sold in 1950. The price then was about £115,000.
For 60 years it was the prized possession of the Robson family, after it was bought by Sir Lawrence Robson, founder of the accountancy firm Robson Rhodes.
His son, Erik Maurice Robson, 66, was desperate to hang on to the estate which he inherited in 1982.
However, he was ordered by a judge to sell it after the break-up of his 24-year marriage to Chloe, who was awarded a settlement of £8 m.
Built in 1673, the hall is set at the end of a gravel drive bordered on both sides by lime trees.
