Framed by brick walls bearing hundreds of letters in honour of the King of Rock, a green door opens onto the last home of Freddie Mercury, the remarkably talented frontman of Queen. In 1985, the singer moved to this quiet street in Kensington and sumptuously decorated the rooms of this home that would host raucous parties and where the studio annex would host recording sessions late into the night. When, with his health deteriorating, the rock star withdrew from the public eye, he would spend more and more time in the intimacy of this home. Assisted, until his death by his ex-lover and best friend, Mary Austin, Mercury died in this house on November 24, 1991. He was cremated and his ashes were placed in a secret location, known only to Mary Austin. Following the last wishes of her friend, the woman, along with her family, still lives in Garden Lodge, surrounded by the furnishings that Freddie Mercury picked out himself. The building was built in 1908 for painter Cecil Rae who lived in the house with his wife and, before Mercury, it had numerous high-profile owners, including Peter Wilson, president of the auction house Sotheby’s.
The Biba Story explores the brand phenomenon invented by Barbara Hulanicki, grew to become the world's first lifestyle brand embodying the fashion of the 1960s and 1970s.
Samuel Courtauld called it "the most wonderful painting in existence." Flaming June by Frederic Leighton is one of the masterpieces of Victorian art and one of the most valuable paintings in the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico. It returns today to the Royal Academy in London where it was first exhibited in 1895.
Everything is ready in London for the UEFA Champions League final which this year will see Carlo Ancelotti's Real Madrid challenge Borussia Dortmund led by Edin Terzic.