£3.6m Blair home just round corner from Madonna

For their £3.6million, the Blairs have bought themselves a home in one of London's most exclusive locations.

Connaught Square, just off the Bayswater Road close to Hyde Park, is the sort of garden square beloved by wealthy Middle Eastern businessmen, not least thanks to its discreet security.

Neighbours will include the headquarters of the Premier League and Football League, while Stella McCartney and Madonna live just a couple of streets away.

The Blairs' new home is a fourstorey house with five bedrooms and a small garden at the back. The owner, believed to be a fine art expert, has kept all the original Georgian features, including a wooden staircase.

Mr Blair said the new house would be let while he served up to another five years in office.

Former residents of Connaught Square include disgraced ex-Conservative MP Jonathan Aitken, who lived there for two years. Sir Richard Branson started his first business venture, a magazine called Student, from a friend's basement there when he was 17.

Only time will tell if Mr Blair's latest foray into the property market will bring him more luck than he has enjoyed in the past.

The Prime Minister sold his Islington home for ?615,000 when he moved into Downing Street - only to see its value rocket when the market took off in the late Nineties. At the time, his profit of ?240,000 - he bought the house for ?375,000 in 1993, at a time when he was still eyeing the top job - seemed considerable. But, less than four years later, the couple who bought it sold it on for just under ?1.5million.

And then there are those flats in Bristol, a transaction the Blairs must heartily wish they had never become involved in.

They bought two flats in the city for ?525,000 in 2002, but were left red-faced when it emerged that conman Peter Foster - boyfriend of Cherie's style guru Carole Caplin - helped arrange the purchase.

The Blairs also own a former vicarage in the PM's Sedgefield constituency, valued at ?450,000. Mr Blair bought Myrobella, the largest house in the County Durham village-of Trimdon Colliery, for ?30,000 in 1983. Since he became PM, ?2million has been spent on the six-bedroom house to turn it into a terrorist-proof fortress.

In London, the couple have contented themselves with their Downing Street apartment while, beyond the gates at the end of their street, the housing market boomed.

Still, the Blairs now have their handsome new home in west London to think about. It is big enough for the Blairs and their four children, and will accommodate enough office space to allow both to pursue post-Number 10 careers.

Estate agents describe Connaught Square as "an established square of highly desirable family homes".

What their neighbours think about such a high-profile family moving into the square was not immediately clear.