Theresa May’s mattress tossed in skip as new PM moves into No 10
Didn’t fancy keeping Theresa’s old mattress, Boris? New PM and his girlfriend Carrie Symonds begin overhauling No 10 by tossing May’s leftover furniture into a skip
- It was out with the old and in with new as Mrs May’s old furniture was dumped
- Her mattress was seen tossed in skip as dozens of John Lewis parcels arrived
- Boris and Carrie, first unmarried pair to live in No 10, spent first night yesterday
Theresa May’s old mattress was bundled into a skip today as Boris Johnson and girlfriend Carrie Symonds overhauled Downing Street.
It was out with the old and in with the new as Mrs May’s furniture was tossed away out the back of No 10 – meanwhile a trolley full of John Lewis boxes were delivered to the front door.
Mr Johnson and Ms Symonds – the first unmarried couple to live in No 10 – are looking to make the coveted home their own.
Out with the old: Theresa May’s old mattress is bundled into a skip as Boris Johnson and girlfriend Carrie Symonds overhaul Downing Street
Mrs May’s furniture was tossed away out the back of Downing Street as the new PM looks to make the coveted home his own
A large delivery was pictured arriving at the front door of No 10 Downing Street
Carrie was seen leaving Downing Street via a back entrance today after spending her first night
Ms Symonds was pictured last night putting a loving arm around Mr Johnson as they entered Downing Street together for the first time.
The Prime Minister’s 31-year-old partner was beaming at him as they arrived at No 10 at just before midnight to spend their first night there as a couple.
Carrie, who was wearing a red and green polka-dot summer dress, had been ushered into a silver Jaguar by two bodyguards at around 8pm before being swept out of Downing Street to meet the Tory leader.
But the first unmarried couple to officially live in No 10 arrived back home together around four hours later, probably after dinner and drinks in central London.
Carrie Symonds puts her arm around Boris Johnson as they arrive at Downing Street to spend their first night there as a couple
The former Tory communications chief smiled broadly at the Prime Minister as they entered No 10 at midnight last night
Carrie and Boris were grinning as they start their new life together behind the world’s most famous black door
The unmarried couple are shown in the centre of the picture entering the back door of No 10 followed by two of the PM’s bodyguards
Carrie was flanked by security as she got into a silver Jaguar and went out to meet the PM at around 8pm
They have chosen the larger four-bedroom flat at No 11 Downing Street instead of the smaller official residence at No 10, which is being taken by new Chancellor Sajid Javid.
Boris separated from his second wife Marina in September after he was thrown out of the family home and he is widely expected to propose to Carrie once his divorce is finalised later this year.
Mr Johnson and Mr Symonds had been living together at her flat in Camberwell, south London, until a well-publicised plate-smashing row recorded by neighbours who claimed she yelled ‘get off me’ and ‘get out of my flat’.
In public Carrie has kept her distance from the PM, not attending the ceremony where he was elected was Tory members and she stood at the end of Downing Street watching him as he gave his first speech outside No 10.
Carrie climbs into the Government Jaguar at the beginning of the evening out yesterday
The luxury car was then swept out of Downing Street’s smaller entrance, close to Horseguard’s Parade and St James’ Park
Four hours later 31-year-old Carrie was pictured smiling broadly at her boyfriend Boris
The former Tory communications chief, who left her job after her relationship with the now PM started, grabbed his arm after leaving the Jag
Her hand then moved to the middle of the Prime Minister’s back and she gave him a rub
She then followed her partner into his official residence to spend their first night there together
But the couple were tactile and openly affectionate as they arrived, smiling, at the Prime Minister’s central London home via its rear entrance late yesterday.
Deliveries from John Lewis were pictured arriving at No 10 yesterday – two days after the new Prime Minister officially moved in with Miss Symonds.
The prime minister moved in on Monday while Miss Symonds stayed there for the first time last night alone while he was in Northern Ireland meeting the leaders of the five political parties in Ulster.
A trolley full of parcels from John Lewis was pictured being carried through the front doors of No 10 this morning including what appeared to be glassware, according to markings on the cardboard boxes.
A spokesman for No 10 refused to comment on the delivery and why it was taken through the front door, adding it was a ‘personal matter’.
Former PR executive Carrie was seen moving furniture into the four-bedroom home with her mother Josephine Mcaffee.
Carrie Symonds has moved No 10 with her boyfriend Boris Johnson
Mr Johnson’s spokesman has confirmed they will furnish the flat with their own money and Miss Symonds will live there ‘without any additional cost to the taxpayer’.
They have set themselves up in the spacious four-bedroom apartment previously lived in by ex-chancellor Philip Hammond and his family, who left last week.
The couple moved in on Monday and No. 10 confirmed Miss Symonds was living with him.
Miss Symonds, pictured in Westminster on Monday, will also live at the flat at no extra cost to the taxpayer, a No. 10 spokesman said
It is believed that Mr Johnson will be re-furnishing the flat out of his own pocket, with the deputy spokeswoman saying: ‘There will not be any additional cost to the taxpayer.’
Last weekend the couple spent time at Chequers, the palatial grace-and-favour countryside retreat in Buckinghamshire.
Ms Symonds, a former Tory spin doctor, will not have any publicly-funded staff working for her, No 10 said.
The spokeswoman said: ‘In relation to her living at No 10 there won’t be any additional cost to the taxpayer.’
The four-bedroom apartment above the finance minister’s office has been home to PMs and their families since 1997, when Tony and Cherie Blair chose it over the two-bedroom flat above the more famous black door.
But while the Blairs (like the Camerons) had a young family, Boris, whose children are grown up, will share the spacious living quarters with only Ms Symonds, 31.
Mr Johnson, pictured in Belfast yesterday where he was meeting Northern Irish officials before returning to London to see Carrie
Mr Javid by contrast has a wife and small children, who may struggle to squeeze into the two-bedroom apartment above his new HQ.
It is believed however that they will stay at the large family home in Fulham which features added security since he was made home secretary last year.
Earlier this month Mr Johnson and his partner bought a £1.3million Victorian semi-detached home in Camberwell, south London, not far from her previous flat.
BoJo’s abodes: How new Prime Minister Boris Johnson made it to the top of the property ladder via a hip New York apartment and a not-so-trendy Wolverhampton terrace!
Boris Johnson finally moved into Downing Street this week.
The domestic arrangements of our peripatetic PM have been complicated to say the least — booted out of his marital home and spending his time between girlfriend Carrie Symonds’s flat and houses lent by friends.
But wanderlust has been a regular feature of his life — since the age of 15, he has moved 32 times.
Here, David Wilkes maps the many homes of Boris . . .
First home: New York
Boris was born in June 1964 in Manhattan, where his father, Stanley, studied economics at Columbia University.
The family home was a loft apartment opposite artist Andy Warhol’s haunt, the funky Chelsea Hotel on West 23rd St.
‘It contained a yellow, out-of-tune piano with the motto “Vive La Fun!” painted glaringly on its lid,’ recalled Stanley.
Boris Johnson’s first home was a New York apartment opposite the infamous Chelsea Hotel on West 23rd St, where he stayed while his father Stanley studied at Columbia university
Transatlantic crossings
In September 1964, the family rented a property in Oxford while Boris’s artist mum Charlotte resumed her English degree at the university.
In 1968, they went to live in Washington DC, where Stanley worked for the World Bank, moving again to New York. At one point, they lived on an island in Connecticut.
Babes in (St John’s) Wood
Now joined by siblings Rachel and Leo, Boris returned to London in 1969.
Initially, the family lodged with Charlotte’s parents, lawyer Sir James Fawcett and his wife, Frances, in Cavendish Avenue, one of the grandest addresses in St John’s Wood.
The family moved to a white stucco house in chi-chi Little Venice. Similar six-bed terrace houses overlooking the canal now cost £8 million.
The Johnson’s returned to London in 1969, first lodging at Boris’ grandparents’ home in Cavendish Avenue, one of the grandest addresses in St John’s Wood
The family moved to a white stucco house in chi-chi Little Venice. Similar six-bed terrace houses overlooking the canal now cost £8 million.
Somerset’s Indian summers
The scene of Boris’s ‘first known literary work’, according to his father Stanley was ‘Boo to grown-ups!’ written on a wall in the family farm around 1969.
Johnson’s paternal grandfather was a hill farmer on Exmoor and Boris spent much of his childhood on the farm.
‘It’s the one place I truly call home,’ he has said. ‘All other places have changed, but not this one.’ He currently part- owns a property in Somerset.
The scene of Boris’s ‘first known literary work’, according to his father Stanley was ‘Boo to grown-ups!’ written on a wall in the family farm around 1969
The Johnsons moved to a home in Princess Road, Primrose Hill, in 1970
In the pink
The Johnsons moved to a home in Princess Road, Primrose Hill, in 1970, and, two years later — after fourth child Jo was born — to a nearby house in Regent’s Park Road.
The next-door house was bought around four years ago for £13.5 million by the fashion designer Stefano Gabbana.
Hello Brussels!
The family moved in 1973 to the EU’s capital city, where Stanley worked for the European Commission.
It was here that Boris began to fashion his views about EU bureaucracy in relation to condom sizes, bendy bananas and prawn cocktail crisp regulations.
Notting Hill high jinks
Shortly after Boris was sent to Eton, his parents divorced. His mother moved to a top-floor maisonette in Elgin Crescent (right) and her children followed in 1979.
Boris’s sister Rachel has recalled how her brothers ‘played endless percussive games of cricket and darts in the upstairs passages’.
Johnson honed his debating skills during dinner parties with Establishment figures such as future Times editor Simon Jenkins.
Oxford spires and a spouse
Boris spent three years studying Classics at Balliol College, Oxford, where he met his first wife, Allegra Mostyn-Owen.
Balliol College, Oxford University
Boris was seconded for three months in 1987 to Wolverhampton’s Express & Star newspaper
Boris the lodger
Hired by The Times as a trainee reporter, Boris was seconded for three months in 1987 to Wolverhampton’s Express & Star newspaper.
He is reported to have lodged with a woman called Brenda on Dimmock Street in Parkfields near Bilston.
The experience led him to say that local Labour politicians’ indifference to the damp in people’s houses made him realise he was a Tory.
The Times’s then foreign editor, George Brock, recalls him as ‘an immediately striking figure with red braces and albino hair’.
Young marrieds
Having been sacked by The Times for fabricating quotes from his godfather, newlywed Boris and Allegra lived first in a flat in Sinclair Road on the borders of Holland Park and Shepherd’s Bush.
In 1989, they moved to Brussels as he took up a post as EU correspondent for the Daily Telegraph. They lived above a dentist’s in the Flemish suburb of Woluwe-Saint-Pierre.
Newlyweds Boris and Allegra lived first in a flat in Sinclair Road on the borders of Holland Park and Shepherd’s Bush
Off to Islington
After the quick collapse of his marriage, Boris married his second wife, barrister Marina Wheeler, in 1993.
They settled in the one-time Socialist Republic of Islington.
From 1996 to 1999, they lived in a four-bedroom terrace house in Calabria Road (right), valued at £387,000 when they moved there and today worth £1.9 million.
Johnson’s journalistic career was by then flourishing and he became The Spectator’s editor in 1999.
Tumult in ‘media gulch’
The Johnsons moved in 2000 to a five-bedroom semi in Furlong Road, also in Islington.
Nicknamed ‘Media Gulch’, its residents variously included TV boss Ian Katz, columnist Tony Parsons, FT writer Kate Kellaway and Left-wing polemicist David Goodhart.
While he was here, Boris’s affair with Petronella Wyatt was revealed. Wife Marina threw him out and changed the locks, but later took him back.
The Johnsons moved in 2000 to a five-bedroom semi in Furlong Road, also in Islington
Bucolic bliss
Boris and Marina bought a four-bedroom detached house near Thame, Oxfordshire, for £640,000 in 2003.
They still own it and it’s worth £1,276,000, according to property website Zoopla.
Boris and Marina bought a four-bedroom detached house near Thame, Oxfordshire, for £640,000 in 2003
Final marital home
In 2009, the family moved to their third Islington home — a Grade II-listed, five-storey Georgian townhouse overlooking Regent’s Canal. They bought it for £2.3million.
Following Boris and Marina’s split, it’s now for sale for £3.75 million and ‘under offer’, according to estate agents. With his divorce still pending, Boris is likely to get a £700,000 windfall from the sale.
A grace-and-favour flat
Following the EU referendum in 2016, Boris was made Foreign Secretary and moved into One Carlton Gardens.
After he quit over Brexit delays, he was reluctant to leave and was accused of staying an extra two weeks because he wanted to keep raking in money from renting out his Islington home. He denied the charge.
Boris was made Foreign Secretary and moved into the grace-and-favour apartment at One Carlton Gardens
Carrie and that noisy row
Home for a short period was in Carrie Symonds’s flat in Camberwell, South London, worth £675,000 until they moved out in June after police were called by a neighbour after a blazing row over a spillage of red wine on the sofa.
The couple recently bought a £1.3 million three-storey, four-bedroom Victorian townhouse elsewhere in Camberwell — believed to be with a joint mortgage.
Home for a short period was in Carrie Symonds’s flat in Camberwell, South London, before the couple recently bought a £1.3 million three-storey, four-bedroom Victorian townhouse elsewhere in Camberwell
. . . and the address he has always wanted
Number 10 is a Grade I-listed building with around 100 rooms that has been home to Prime ministers since 1735
Number 10 is a Grade I-listed building with around 100 rooms that has been home to Prime ministers since 1735.
A Ministerial Code sets out that residence here is largely tax-free but Boris is expected to pay council tax while other costs such as lighting, heating and redecoration will be taxable
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