Take a look around Britain’s most expensive home - valued at £250 million

Cameras have been inside Britain’s most expensive home, but do you think you’d want to live in it?

Phones4U owner John Caudwell has opened up his home - valued at around £250 million - for a documentary on Channel 4 called Britain’s Most Expensive Home.

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The 67 year old has spent eight years redeveloping his Mayfair mansion, which was originally two separate homes before he bought both for £87 million.

Since then he has spent more than £65 million on a restoration workforce of 300 to get the house finished.

Spread over 43,000 square feet, and with 15 separate bedrooms, Caudlwell’s home covers the same space as a football pitch. As the redecoration entered its final phase, the billionaire let Channel 4 film while the finishing touches were put in place.

Some unusual features

The mansion contains some of the more common features of the homes of the super rich, including an enormous cinema room, an indoor swimming pool, and a games room.

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But it also has some more unique designs, including a running river filled with tropical fish in the dining room, and bronze lizards decorating the walls. In one room, a blossoming cherry tree hangs above a glass ceiling.

The house also has an ornate staircase centred around a huge multi-tiered chandelier, and a grand dining room for more formal occasions.

Who is John Caudwell?

John Caudwell was born in Birmingham in 1952. The founder of mobile phone retailer Phones4U, he is worth more than £1.5 billion, according to the Sunday Times Rich List.

Caudwell is Britain’s largest taxpayer. While he has stated publicly that he thinks paying tax is a moral obligation in the country he “loves more than any other”, Caudwell has taken significant steps to avoid tax in the past.

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In 2005, the billionaire lost a case against HMRC over the use of an offshore trust to avoid paying UK taxes. Caudwell was forced to pay £13 million in unpaid taxes to the Inland Revenue.

Britain’s Most Expensive Home is an hour long documentary that will be broadcast on Channel 4 tomorrow, Wednesday 5 February 2020 at 9pm.