A house in East Sheen which was home to a Cold War spymaster and Olympic medallist during the 1960s is for sale for £5 million with Antony Roberts.
The six-bedroom Edwardian house on Vicarage Road was built in 1901 and converted into three flats in the 1950s. In the 1960s, the middle flat was purchased by Harold Taplin Shergold and his wife, Bevis Anael Shergold (née Reid).
Shergold served with the Eighth Army during the Second World War, and joined the Secret Intelligence Service in 1947.
In 1954, he was put in charge of agent networks operating in the Baltic states, and found them to have been penetrated by the KGB.
Most famously, though, Shergold is said to have been the person to have caught British double agent George Blake, who worked for MI6 and became a spy for the Soviet Union. He confessed at the Old Bailey in 1961, under interrogation from Shergold.
Shergold was also the handler for Oleg Penkovsky, a senior Soviet military intelligence officer who was eventually convicted of spying for the United Kingdom and United States. His intelligence is regarded as crucial to the outcome of the Cold War.
Bevis Shergold (then Reid), meanwhile, was a shot putter, discus and javelin thrower who won 12 Women’s Amateur Athletic Association titles and competed in the 1948 Olympic games.
Although the couple moved to the property in the 1960s, it is not known how long they lived there.
When Amy Reynolds and her husband bought the ground floor flat in 2012, the property was still divided into three apartments. Shortly afterwards, they purchased the top floor flat.
“We had the freehold, but we never knew if we’d get the middle,” says Reynolds. “The middle people said they were never selling.”
Reynolds and her family lived in the top floor flat while renovating the ground floor, which involved removing the walls, rewiring, replumbing and reinsulating. “We literally started from scratch,” she says. “We moved back down and then we renovated the top floor so that we could rent it out.”
In 2015 —just as the renovation was finishing— the owners of the middle flat said that they were finally ready to sell, and Reynolds completed the trio. The builders were brought back in, and the house was returned to one large family home.
“It feels like it’s been 10 years of renovation,” she says. “But because of that, it’s all done on the inside.”
Today, the house covers 4,721 square feet over three floors, plus a double garage. They added a gym in an extension, which has its own entrance, while the house also has two gardens, four balconies, six bedrooms, three reception rooms and two studies.
“It’s quite a flexible layout. We’ve used it in multiple different ways: we’ve had a live-in nanny, my husband’s worked from home, we’ve had a whole foster family here before,” says Reynolds, who is head of sales at Antony Roberts and is now selling her own home. “You can live quite independently and have shared touchpoints, like the kitchen.”
Reynolds and her husband also upgraded the house’s eco-credentials, adding insulation, solar panels, an app-controlled hybrid air source heat pump system and a hot water battery. “We now have free hot water, which is lovely. Dishwater, lights – during the day on a sunny day, it’s all free energy,” she explains.
If the buyers were to add a second battery, which would allow them to store more energy, the bills would be reduced even further.
Now, though, Reynolds and her husband are divorcing, and have decided to sell the property that they have spent most of the last decade renovating. Although she says she doesn’t find selling her own home strange, Reynolds has left it up to her team to do the viewings. “I’m very happy to be part of the process,” she says.
Reynolds believes the property would suit a large or a multi-generational family. The basement, for example, has its own entrance, while the top floor uses the original stairs, meaning that it can be accessed without walking through the whole house.
“Some of the best bits are the privacy of the garden, its unique location, and the layout. We’re moments from Richmond Park, Palewell Common, Mortlake Staton and the local shops and schools. It’s well connected, but it also feels tucked away. And we’ve got two private gardens.”
“I absolutely adore [the house], but I’ll love the next one as well,” she adds. “It’s very special.”
