I spoke at a conference at the HQ of Grosvenor group last week, the enormous property company that manages the lands of the Duke of Westminster.
On the way out I noticed a cabinet, in which this little box was displayed.
Curious, I drew near and read the story about the single black peppercorn and 25 silver peppercorns around it.
This is the rent formerly paid by the US government to the Grosvenor estates for the site of the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square.
Apparently in the 1950s the US government asked if they could purchase the freehold of the Square where they intended to build their new Embassy.
The Duke’s trustee “indicated that it would be possible to buy the freehold on one condition; namely that the lands confiscated at the end of the American War of Independence be returned to the Grosvenor family. The Ambassador decided not to push ahead with buying the freehold”.
Clearly the Duke was generous as the estate agreed instead to the annual rent of one peppercorn.
This emamel box contains gifts from a previous US ambassador to the Duke of Westminster, so they really are the actual rent paid!
In 2018 the US embassy recently moved to Vauxhall, as the old site could not be upgraded for security measures.
However this move was famously criticised by President Trump.
“In the UK, in London, we had the best site in all of London. The best site. Well, some genius said, ‘We’re gonna sell the site and then we’re going to take the money and build a new embassy.’ That sounds good, right, but you’ve got to have money left over if you do that, right? They go out and they buy a horrible location. And they build a new embassy. That’s the good news. The bad news is it cost over a billion dollars.””
Perhaps he would have been even more disgusted if he had known the rent that was being paid for it.
This peppercorn rent was the sort of deal he would have dreamed of.
