Boris Johnson paid £3,800,000 for mansion that has moat to keep people out
Ex-prime minister Boris Johnson has bought a multi-million mansion despite previously complaining about ‘only’ earning £160,000.
It’s been reported Mr Johnson even negotiated £200,000 off the asking price, buying the nine-bedroom home for a cool £3.8 million.
This is despite complaining that as both prime minister and an MP he couldn’t get by on a combined salary of £164,080.
The country house, Brightwell Manor, had been on the market for four years, The Mirror reports, and the sale is said to have gone through just weeks before BBC chairman Richard Sharp resigned over his role in helping Mr Johnson secure an £800,000 loan.
The manor, located in the Oxfordshire countryside, dates back to the 1600s and has Tudor and Georgian features.
However the house is still surrounded on three sides by a 900-year-old moat, which dates back to when a castle originally stood on the site, built by King Stephen.
Brightwell Manor is 8,128-square-feet and has nine bedrooms and five bathrooms.
It stands on just under five acres of land which also features a guest cottage, a garage, a tennis court and stables.
It’s understood Mr Johnson and wife Carrie saw the property online and then viewed it twice in person.
Opponents are angry at his latest purchase, recalling the cost of investigations into Downing Street parties during the coronavirus lockdowns and the £245,000 spent on Mr Johnson’s legal team.
A Labour source said: ‘While Johnson enriches himself on the back of his failed premiership and splashes the cash, he continues to cream the public to pay for his Partygate legal bills.
‘Rishi Sunak is giving this disgraced former PM free rein to sponge off taxpayers.’
A source who worked under Mr Johnson in Downing Street said: ‘He used to say he was never being paid enough.
‘He was so incredibly tight with money, jokes were made if his wallet ever came out.’
In the five months since he resigned as prime minister, Mr Johnson has earned more than £3 million – a £2.5 million advance from the Harry Walker speaking agency in February, and a £510,000 advance for his memoirs.
During that time he has lived with his wife and their two sons rent-free in properties owned by Tory donors, it’s been claimed.
One is a Cotswolds cottage and the other a £20 million townhouse in London’s Knightsbridge.
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