A MILLIONAIRE’s paradise is home to A-list celebs and lined with Rolls-Royces and Bentleys – but it’s kept top secret.

Houses on one of Stockwell’s more affluent roads cost a whopping £1.18 million on average.

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Some pads in the south London neighbourhood even come equipped with a gym, pool or home cinema. 

Local architect Louis, 47, once designed a glass house for a diamond vendor who wanted a room for his enormous collection of cacti.

The project cost the homeowner over £15,000 – just a drop in the ocean for a man who owns a Rolls-Royce and Bentley.

His house is also adorned with 12 columns to represent the tribes of Israel, Louis added..

Showbiz stars Joanna Lumley and Toby Jones also live in the leafy neighbourhood.

Theatre director Zoe, 33, said her whole road is filled with people from the industry.

Zoe has lived in her godparents’ house ‘for mates rates’ for seven years.

She said: “Things have definitely changed. The post office closed down because of gentrification. Everyone protested.”

Just a few minutes away in a multiple story house lives artist Richard Rees, the President of the Pastel Society.

He said: “Large houses are easily worth £2.5 million plus and are very hard to get hold of.”

Stockwell is just a stone’s throw away from the Oval cricket ground and a short tube ride from the city centre.

Finance tech worker Sam Hanfield said this makes the area particularly appealing for rich Londoners.

Sam, 37, added: “Brixton Market 10 years ago was very different to what it is now.

“It’s much more gentrified. You can see that in the types of people wandering around.”

Sam bought one of the area’s beautiful Georgian houses for a whopping £1.2million – and reckons it has nearly doubled in value.

He said: “The street I’m on isn’t just lawyers and investment bankers, there are a lot of creators. My neighbour’s house used to be a squat.”

Writer Paul, 67, has lived in the area for 25 years and keeps his Tesla on the street outside his house. 

Like Sam, he’s also bagged himself a gorgeous Georgian villa, which he reckons is worth about £2 million now.

He said: “When we moved here the houses weren’t expensive but now they’re a lot of money.”

Despite keeping his EV on the street, Paul said he’s never been the victim of any crime.

But he said his niece did have her handbag stolen when she was walking one night.

Other longtime residents say they are adjusting to the area’s new-found glam.  

Andrew, 70, said: “There are some seriously affluent people around here.”

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“Those two houses are now a million and a half were squatted in when we moved in.”

He added: “There are lots of bankers who have moved in the last five years.

“There are people who are putting a gym and theatre in the basement. It’s the sort of thing you would find in Kensington.”

Inigo Woodham-Smith, 27, lives at home with his mother – a masseuse and spiritual healer – just down the road.

Pizza chef and occasional photographer Inigo attended Emmanuel School in Battersea, which costs almost £25,000 a year. 

He said: “Stockwell is fantastic, we’ve got a Pret and we’ve got the Swan – it doesn’t get better.”

One café in Stockwell sells coffee beans – with notes of champagne – for a whopping £29.

For something a little stronger, residents can head over to their local off-license and pick up a bottle of champagne for £150.

The corner shop has a whole shelf dedicated to pricey booze – from quality whisky to Grey Goose vodka.

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A SIMPLE tool could help to reveal if state pension households are being underpaid – and it’s totally free and takes just a few minutes.

A series of government blunders mean that hundreds of thousands of people have been paid less state pension than they should have.

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The mistakes disproportionately impact women, but that doesn’t mean that’s the only group affected.

Depending on why your pension was underpaid, you might get the backdated payments automatically, or you might have to apply.

It’s possible that you fall into more than one category, as there is some overlap, so you may need to follow a couple of different processes to get what you’re owed.

We’ve put together a full list of reasons you could be owed backdated state pension payments worth £10,000s.

LCP has developed an online tool to help people understand what state pension they are entitled to inherit on top of their own state pension here.

A tool previously launched by the company to help married women check for underpayments had over one million visits.

You will need to be prepared to answer some questions about your age and marital status, as well as how much money you currently receive in state pension.

If you’re using the married woman’s calculator, you will also need to have information about your husband’s pension to hand.

If it turns out that your state pension is being underpaid because of an error, it’s worth contacting either the DWP or the Pensions Service.

Steve Webb, partner at LCP and former Pensions Minister, said: “The department needs to launch an urgent investigation into the scale of this problem.”

The DWP also has a tool to help those receiving the new state pension assess their eligibility for inherited state pension amounts on the government website.

There is also a guide on inheriting or increasing a state pension on the gov’s site.

Calculate your state pension payments

To qualify for the new state pension, you need to have paid enough National Insurance (NI) contributions or credits.

You need at least ten years on your record to get any payments at all. To get the full amount, you usually need 35 years’ worth of contributions.

If you have gaps on your record, you can choose to buy the missing years to boost your state pension payments.

To find out whether you’re on track to get the full state pension, you can check your forecast on gov.uk.

You’ll need to sign in through the government gateway. If you’ve already got an account, use those details, otherwise you might need to set one up.

Everyone reaching retirement age now can only qualify for the new state pension, which follows the rules outlined above.

But if you are either a man who was born before 6 April 1951 or a woman who was born before 6 April 1953, you’ll get something called the basic state pension, and you might also get additional state pension.

You can read more about the basic state pension on the government’s website.

IT’S a well known fact that I love a Premier Inn hotel.

I’ve been lucky enough to stay at some fantastic hotels around the world.

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And while some of them are no contest, there is something about a Premier Inn that I love as a budget option.

And the hotel chain has a brand new style of room launching across the UK – so I decided to check it out.

Called the Next Evolution rooms, I headed to the Angel hotel in London to take a look for myself.

Sarah Simpson, Head of Product & Proposition at Whitbread, said the new designs were to allow more “flexibility and personalisation” for guests.

Some of the new additions are a stretch at best – including “floor length curtains” – although they definitely hid enough of the light to make the room pitch black at night so got some of the best sleep I’d had in a while.

But I was impressed by the decor, which is definitely a modern take on the hotel’s iconic purple.

This included tasteful art on the walls, a huge purple bed headboard as well as purple clothes hangers and even a purple hairdryer.

The room has been divided into ‘zones’ according to the hotel chain – work, sleep and getting ready.

I especially appreciated the addition of a table you can move, rather than the desks that are usually attached to the wall in the corner of the room.

And one thing I dread at hotels are the bathrooms, which can easily be small and rather grotty.

But the new bathrooms are what won me over.

The huge walk in showers were a highlight, with no grim shower curtains or tatty bath to step into.

Each room has Bayliss & Harding toiletries, rather than some unknown, cheap brand that can often be found in rooms.

And one small element I loved was the lighting, with a choice of the main light or just a purple underlight that made me feel like I was in a trendy club toilet (in a good way).

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Obviously they have all of the other perks you can find in the Premier Plus rooms already in most hotel rooms, such as offee machines, mini fridges and USB ports.

And you can of course buy the pillows and bedding for your own house.

In case you had any doubt of how much of a fan I was – you’ll find the pillows in my own bedroom at home.

The rooms can be found at 32 hotels around the UK, including a number of airports.

This is set to be rolled out more in the future, with there being more than 850 Premier Inns across the country.

By February 2025, around 11,000 of the rooms are to be introduced across 100 hotels in the UK.

My verdict? While they aren’t the biggest game-changer when it comes to a Premier Inn room, they are a nice upgrade if you are staying for more than a few days.

I also tried the world’s biggest Premier Inn which is found in the UK and has more than 700 rooms.

We also compared Premier Inn with Travelodge and easyHotel – here’s the one which came out on top.

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SPOTTING a rare coin in your change could be a big money-spinner – especially if you spot a 50p featuring a specific animal.

If you discover a sought-after coin in your change, you can make money on it by selling it on.

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You could do this through an auction, either online, in person, or through a dealer.

There are some coins which are known to fetch large sums of cash, such as the Kew Gardens 50p and the commemorative 50p coins minted to mark the London 2012 games.

But there are also lesser-known designs that are worth keeping an eye out for – like the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) 50p coin.

This special coin was released in 2011, and features the famous WWF panda logo in the middle.

There’s 50 other animals surrounding it including elephants, birds, polar bears and butterflies.

Around 3,400,000 of these coins were released into circulation in 2011, making it the tenth rarest 50p there is, according to Change Checker.

If a coin is rare, there are not many of them about – and the WWF 50p is one of the least likely coins you’ll come across in your spare change.

But a coin not only needs to be rare to increase its value – it needs to be scarce too.

That means a lot of people want them.

According to Change Checker, WWF coins are not the most highly sought after coins.

They are ranked 15th on the index – with 100 being the most in demand coin there is – King Charles III Atlantic Salmon 50p.

But collectors will stay pay up for a WWF coin to add to their collection.

The Sun spotted one of these coins that was flogged for £3 on October 18.

Meanwhile, another sold for £5.50 on October 13 with nine bids.

While this may not seem like a significant amount of money, it’s still 11 times more than the coin’s face value.

How to check if a coin is rare

In most cases, a coin is rare if it has a low mintage figure – which is set by The Royal Mint.

The mintage figure relates to how many of the coins were made, so the fewer there are of them, the rarer they are.

You can find out what coins are rare and how they look on The Royal Mint’s website.

Your next step after this is seeing if the same coin is still available to buy in superior Brilliant Uncirculated quality from an official Royal Mint distributor, according to Change Checker.

These coins have been specially made to a superior quality which differentiates them from other coins you might find in your pocket.

How to sell a rare coin

If, after checking, you realise you’ve come across a rare coin, there’s a number of ways you can sell it.

You can sell it on eBay, through Facebook, or in an auction.

But be wary of the risks.

For example, there are a number of scams targeting sellers on Facebook.

Crooks will say they’re planning to buy the item, and ask for money upfront for a courier they’ll be sending around.

But it’s all a ruse to get you to send free cash to them – and they never have any intention of picking your item up.

It’s always best to meet in person when buying or selling on Facebook Marketplace.

Ensure it’s a public meeting spot that’s in a well-lit area.

Avoid payment links and log in directly through the payment method’s website.

Most sellers prefer to deal with cash directly when meeting to ensure it’s legitimate.

The safest way to sell a rare coin is more than likely at auction. You can organise this with The Royal Mint’s Collectors Service.

It has a team of experts who can help you authenticate and value your coin.

You can get in touch via email and a member of the valuation team will contact get back to you.

You will be charged for the service though – the cost varies depending on the size of your collection.

Meanwhile, you can sell rare coins on eBay.

But take into account that if you manage to sell your item then eBay will charge you 10% of the money you made – this includes postage and packaging.

Always keep proof of postage to protect yourself from dodgy buyers who may claim they never received their item.

Send the parcel by tracked delivery if you can.

Do you have a money problem that needs sorting? Get in touch by emailing money-sm@news.co.uk.

Plus, you can join our Sun Money Chats and Tips Facebook group to share your tips and stories

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Neil and I live in a Shoreditch townhouse, where the kitchen’s in the basement. For a long time, we used to host people upstairs and keep the chaos down below but by now most people who come here know that’s a bit of a show and they’ll muck in. For small dinners, like the menu here, we’ll keep everything downstairs.

We work out menus by going to the butcher’s in the morning, choosing a bit of meat and building a meal out around it. There’s not much planning beyond that, and we tend to cook jumping in on top of each other rather than dividing jobs equally . . . except pasta is always me, and carving the meat is always Neil. A friend once told us we make hosting look easy. There’s no panicking, although, admittedly, quite a lot of swearing. The only time the system doesn’t work is if Neil cooks one thing on the entire menu and it ends up being the dish that everyone compliments. That leaves me fuming.

We’re in the heart of game season at the moment, which is something we should all be eating more of but are a bit scared to approach. Venison, in particular is very easy — you treat it like beef, and all you need to remember is that it’s a lean meat, so you want plenty of butter and maybe some lardons. In terms of game birds, partridge is mid-level when it comes to difficulty — because it’s small it’s most suitable for pan frying, whereas pheasant and poussin you can treat more or less like a chicken, just cooked for less time. You could substitute either here if you’re struggling to get hold of partridge. But do try and get a game bird of some sort, because it makes so much more sense than importing our meat.

Pumpkin soup

1. In a large pan big enough to hold all the diced pumpkin add the olive oil and knob of butter and heat gently.

2. Add the onion and garlic. Cook gently until soft, then add the pumpkin. Season and then stir for a couple of minutes.

3. Cover with the stock, bring to a boil then turn down and simmer until the pumpkin is soft, about 20 minutes.

4. Remove from the heat and blend together using a hand blender until smooth. At this stage, you can store in the fridge until ready to serve.

5. Gently reheat and serve with a dash of olive oil and spoon of crème fraîche.

Welsh rarebit

This is unashamedly the St John recipe, which is truly the best Welsh rarebit in the world.

1. Melt the butter in a pan, stir in the flour, and let this cook together until it smells biscuity but is not browning, about two minutes.

2. Add the mustard powder and cayenne pepper. Stir in the Worcestershire sauce and whisk the Guinness in, then add the cheese gradually over a gentle heat so that it melts into the mix.

3. When it’s all of one consistency, remove from the heat, pour out into a shallow container, and allow to set. It will keep happily in the fridge for a couple of weeks in this state.

4. When ready to serve, take each piece of bread and toast on both sides. Cover one side with the rarebit mixture to about 1cm thick — if you find that it doesn’t spread with ease, press it on with your fingers. Put it on a baking sheet and place under the grill until golden and bubbling.

Beetroot and venison salad

For the vinaigrette

1. Make the vinaigrette by combining the ingredients. Leave to one side.

2. In a pan, add the washed beetroot and cover with cold water. Add the vinegar, salt, sugar and the bay leaf. Bring to the boil, turn down to a simmer and cook until a knife can go through the beetroot easily, about 45 minutes.

3. When cooked, drain, and peel the skin off the beetroot once cool enough to handle but still warm. (If you have plastic gloves it will save you getting red hands.) Cut into inch-sized chunks while still warm and toss into the vinaigrette.

4. When ready to serve, heat a frying pan and add the oil and butter until it starts to foam, then add the seasoned loin and colour evenly, turning as you do.

5. Once it’s evenly coloured, cook the loin for another four minutes in a pan, then remove from the pan and allow to rest.

6. To finish the salad toss the beetroot with the torn radicchio and crushed pickled walnuts. Arrange on a serving dish and place the sliced venison over the salad then serve immediately.

Pan-fried partridge

1. In a pan large enough to hold the partridges, add the oil and butter, and gently heat until the butter starts to bubble and turn golden brown.

2. Season the partridges inside and out.

3. Place into the foaming butter and start to colour all over, starting on the breast side. Move the partridges around to evenly colour the birds. This should take about 10 minutes. (If you have the legs, repeat the same process in a separate pan but cook for 20 minutes, so they are lovely and soft.)

4. Remove the partridges to a deep tray, placing them cavity-side upwards. While the pan is still hot, add a dash of red wine vinegar and mix with the butter then use a spoon to baste inside the cavity with the fats.

5. Rest the partridges for 10 minutes then serve with their cooking juices on the cavolo nero.

Cavolo nero

1. Place a pan of salted water on to boil.

2. Prep the cavolo nero by removing the leaves from the stalks.

3. Place in the boiling water and blanch until cooked, about five minutes. Drain well and allow to cool.

4. When ready to serve, add a spoon of oil and the garlic and bacon to a frying pan and sauté over a medium heat until crispy.

5. Add the cavolo nero and sauté together briefly. Check the seasoning and finish with a touch of black pepper.

Caramelised onion halves

1. Halve the onions across their middles (leave the skins on).

2. Over a medium heat, heat the olive oil and butter together in a frying pan or saucepan large enough to hold the onions in a single layer.

3. When the butter has melted and starts to bubble, season the onions with salt and pepper and add them to the pan, cut side downwards. Allow them to sizzle for three to four minutes, until golden brown, then turn them over so that they are skin-side down.

4. Add five tbs of water and cover the surface of the pan with a piece of baking paper or lid.

5. Turn the heat down to low and cook for 15-20 minutes, removing the covering to turn occasionally and adding a little more butter and water as necessary, until the onions are soft enough that a knife goes through them easily.

Pommes aligot

This cheesy potato dish is a southern French staple and often appears on the menu at The French House, where Neil is head chef. But there is no substitute for tome fraîche, an unsalted fresh cheese, so if you can’t find it, it’s best to serve mashed potatoes instead.

1. Cook the potatoes in boiling salted water until very tender.

2. Melt the butter with the rosemary and garlic and set aside.

3. Drain the potatoes well, and allow them to steam for a few minutes.

4. Pass the butter (not the aromatics) into a clean pan, push the potatoes through a sieve, add milk and check seasoning.

5. Add the tome fraîche and heat while stirring vigorously until smooth and stringy. Serve immediately.

Rum-soaked prunes

1. Stir tea and 500ml boiling water in a small bowl; let brew for five minutes.

2. Strain into a medium saucepan.

3. Add the rum and vanilla, if using, and bring to the boil for two minutes.

4. Place prunes in a large bowl; stir in hot syrup. Set aside to cool to room temperature.

5. Store in the fridge.

Vanilla tart

For the pastry

For the custard

1. Preheat your oven to 170C. Cut the cold butter into small pieces and rub into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add the sugar, salt and lemon zest and mix well.

2. Beat together the egg yolk and whole egg and slowly add to the mixture. Mix until the pastry forms a ball. Do not over-work.

3. Wrap tightly in parchment paper and press down so it forms a flat disc, then refrigerate for two hours.

4. On a lightly floured surface roll the pastry out to about 2mm thick, then use it to line an 18cm tart ring. Press the pastry gently into the sides and prick the base with a fork.

5. Line with parchment paper and add baking beans or rice to cover the base. Bake blind for about 10 minutes or until the pastry is starting to turn golden brown around the edges. Remove the beans (once cool enough to handle) and cook for a further 10 minutes until evenly coloured.

6. Turn the oven down to 130°C.

7. Bring the cream to the boil in a pan with the vanilla.

8. Whisk the yolks and sugar together then add the cream and vanilla and mix well. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve into a jug.

9. Place the empty pastry case in the oven then pour the custard mix right to the brim. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until the custard appears set but not too firm. Remove from the oven and grate the nutmeg on top. Allow to cool to room temperature before serving with the prunes.

Angela Hartnett is chef-patron of Cafe Murano and Murano. Neil Borthwick is head chef at The French House

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Rachel Reeves is considering raising UK capital gains tax in her Budget on October 30. By doing so, she would be following in the footsteps of a long line of British chancellors who have changed the rate since it was first introduced by Labour nearly 60 years ago.

What level has UK capital gains tax been historically?

Generally, it has fallen between two opposite poles; higher rates with more generous reliefs and lower rates with few reliefs.

The tax was introduced by the Labour chancellor James Callaghan in 1965 at a flat rate of 30 per cent on gains realised on the disposal of assets. It was created to prevent people converting income into capital gains to avoid paying high rates of income tax.

After a period of high inflation in the 1970s, an “indexation allowance” was introduced in 1982 to avoid the taxation of paper gains from rising prices.

In 1988, the first big reform of CGT was undertaken by Conservative chancellor Nigel Lawson who equalised CGT rates with individuals’ marginal income tax rates — the highest of which was 40 per cent at the time.

However, Lawson’s reforms also introduced generous reliefs, including a rebasing of assets to their market value in 1982, in order to cushion the effect of the rate rise, and introduced reliefs for small business owners on retirement.

Another big reform came in 1998 when Labour chancellor Gordon Brown scrapped indexation relief, arguing it was unnecessary in a low-inflation environment.

Instead, Brown introduced a new system called “taper relief”. This sought to encourage investors to hold assets for longer, particularly shares in businesses, and taxed them at successively lower rates the longer the length of ownership.

When Labour’s Alistair Darling took over from Brown in 2008, he scrapped the relief and instead levied CGT at a single flat rate of 18 per cent for individuals and a 10 per cent rate for some business owners. The latter became known as entrepreneurs’ relief and is now referred to as business asset disposal relief.

Under the Tory-led government coalition with the Liberal Democrats, the chancellor George Osborne raised the CGT rate to 28 per cent for higher-rate taxpayers in 2010.

What has the UK’s policy been more recently?

In 2016, Osborne cut the rate for most assets (apart from carried interest and certain residential property) to 20 per cent for higher-rate taxpayers and 10 per cent for basic-rate taxpayers. Earlier this year, then-chancellor Jeremy Hunt lowered the residential property rate from 28 per cent to 24 per cent.

CGT is currently charged at the rate of either 10 per cent or 18 per cent for basic rate UK taxpayers. For higher or additional rate taxpayers, the rate is either 20 per cent or 24 per cent. Carried interest is charged at 28 per cent.

But since about 2010 the divergence between gains declared and tax paid has widened substantially. Tax experts said this could be due to a number of reasons, such as the stripping out of indexation relief and increases in the annual exemption allowance, which rose from £10,100 in 2010-11 to a peak of £12,300 in 2022-23. It has since been cut to £3,000.

How do other countries tax CGT?

Most countries in the OECD group of wealthy nations have CGT rates significantly lower than their income tax rates — a pattern the UK conforms to.

Across the world CGT is levied in various ways, with specific reliefs and exemptions applied to different types of assets, holding time and transactions.

For instance, the highest tax rate on capital gains in Australia is 45 per cent (the top income tax rate). But the regime also allows for a 50 per cent discount on the gain for assets held for more than 12 months.

The US charges CGT at a headline rate of 20 per cent, however, most pay at 15 per cent if an asset is held longer than 12 months.

Other countries make use of features that were historically part of the UK system, such as France, which has a taper relief for property that is dependent on length of ownership, or Portugal, which has an indexation allowance on property in certain circumstances.

Nordic nations typically have some of the top CGT levies, with Denmark’s rate of 42 per cent among the highest in the world.

Meanwhile, several jurisdictions, including the Bahamas, Belgium, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Hong Kong, Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and the UAE, do not charge CGT at all.

“[CGT] is not a huge amount of any country’s tax take,” added Elsa Littlewood, partner at BDO.

What happens when governments raise rates?

Even the rumour of rate rises has been shown to trigger a sell-off of investments or assets, Littlewood said, pointing to official statistics last month that showed that CGT receipts in August were the highest received in that month for several years.

In contrast, when higher rates are actually in place it has tended to result in fewer people selling assets, to avoid paying tax at the higher rate.

John Barnett, chair of the technical policy and oversight committee of the Chartered Institute of Taxation, a professional body, said the Lawson CGT regime “arguably restricted entrepreneurship”.

“It definitely led people to leave the country, go off to Belgium or Portugal, say, to realise gains and then come back. It meant that people hung on to things and didn’t sell them, which was bad for tax receipts and the economy,” he said.

“If you tinker with CGT there’s more chance for behavioural change [from taxpayers],” added Emma Rawson, technical officer for the Association of Taxation Technicians.

And what is the effect of lowering them?

One senior adviser said that generally lower rates have brought in more CGT revenue. “The Lawson period had relatively low CGT paid compared to the Brown period,” they noted.

However, an OECD working paper found that across the OECD the empirical evidence was not so clear-cut. “Changes in the tax rate or anticipated changes have coincided with large increases in capital gains realisations, but realisations quickly fell back to previous levels,” it concluded.

In 2010, Osborne told parliament the Treasury had produced an analysis that showed an optimum CGT rate of 28 per cent.

More recently Conservative officials told the FT a rate of 24 per cent on property was considered the peak of the CGT Laffer curve, the point at which increased taxes will depress economic activity and lead to a lower overall yield.

Some tax experts think that because of these risks Reeves will not seek to raise the rate much higher than it currently stands.

“In the UK’s tenuous situation in a post-Brexit, post-Covid world, it’s a really very challenging policy to be playing around with,” said Daniel Bunn, president and chief executive of the US-based Tax Foundation think-tank.