Diana’s former butler Paul Burrell has sold his £475,000 Farndon home subject to contract after recently tying the knot with his long-term boyfriend.
Mr Burrell, 58, described by the late royal as her ‘rock’, married lawyer Graham Cooper during an intimate ceremony in the Lake District earlier this month.
Now the Right Move website indicates the house he previously shared with ex-wife Maria has sold after being on the market for several months.
Mr Burrell, who remains friends with US-based Maria, apparently joked that the sale of the High Street Georgian property was for his ‘settlement’.
The former royal servant still runs the next door florist in Farndon but now lives with his partner in a mock-Tudor house near Peckforton Castle, which recently featured on ITV’s Through the Keyhole presented by Keith Lemon.
The four-bed Farndon property, which features two bathrooms, a courtyard and gardens, has been on the market before. In 2004, the house was advertised at £419,950 through a Lower Bridge Street estate agent in Chester but the property was later withdrawn from sale.
In 2008 the three storey property and next door florists was put on the market for £600,000 but again the sale did not materialise.
The house holds both good and bad memories for the family. It was the scene of a raid by police searching for Princess Diana’s belongings ahead of the infamous court case in which Mr Burrell was accused of theft.
However, The Old Bailey trial collapsed after The Queen remembered a conversation with the former butler in which he told her he was hanging on to some of her possessions for ‘safekeeping’.
Mr Burrell and his ex-wife, who have two grown-up sons, have been living apart for years with Maria, 62, in Florida with their boys.
He believes he has found a soulmate in lawyer Graham.
Speaking before his nuptials, Mr Burrell told the Daily Mirror: “What I’m looking forward to most is being a couple and being able to say to people, ‘Have you met my other half?’ He has a gentleness and a kindness I wish I could have. I don’t know where he finds the courage from.”