Countryside homes in on Cliveden

STATELY home Cliveden, setting of the Christine Keeler sex scandal of the Sixties, is to get a new image following a decision by its owner the National Trust to build 198 'greener' and environmentally 'sustainable' homes in its grounds.

Countryside Properties will build the homes on the derelict 14-acre former Canadian Red Cross Hospital site on the Cliveden Estate near Maidenhead. Work on the £80m development will start next year with up to 40 of the houses and apartments designed to provide homes for key workers on the estate.

The swimming pool in the grounds of Cliveden was the scene of the first meeting between Conservative Defence Minister John Profumo and call girl Christine Keeler that led to a crisis in the Government of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. In the 1920s and 1930s, the house was the base for the politically influential Cliveden Set.