New beach pad for Charlize

Hollywood actress Charlize Theron, who plays a gangster's moll in The Italian Job opposite Mark Wahlberg, has spent nearly £2 million on an ocean-front home in Malibu, California. The three-bedroom deck house is convenient for taking her two spaniels Denver and Delilah on long beach walks. The South African-born former girlfriend of heart-throb George Clooney is dating Irish actor Stuart Townsend, her co-star in the recent thriller Trapped. "I have this fantasy of raising children on a farm the way I was raised," she wistfully observes.

A former photographic studio in a purpose-built block yards from Fleet Street is for sale at only £185,000 through Frank Harris. Celebrities such as Michael Crawford and the Bee Gees once posed for snapper Chris Barham there, as did former model and wife of top fashion photographer David Bailey, Marie Helvin. "The studio has a bathroom and kitchenette attached and would provide a perfect bachelor pad for someone working in the City," Barham tells me.

That stylish PR and marketing couple Colin and Lindy Woodhead are selling their wisteria-clad seven-bedroom house in Fulham for £1.15 million through Lane Fox. The Victorian semi-detached has a double drawing room, conservatory/dining room and walled garden. "It has been a wonderful family home for us for more than 21 years," says Lindy, who recently published a biography of make-up queens Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein. "But now our two sons are grown-up and we're spending more time at our new house near Toulouse, we don't need the space."

Superstar chef Jamie Oliver has scotched reports that he has spent £1 million on a five-bedroom seaside home at Shoeburyness, Essex. "They are totally untrue," insists his PA. Instead Jamie and his wife, Jules are staying put with their children, Daisy Boo and Poppy Honey at their north London house. The TV cook's supposed "new pad" was in the 465-home Gladedale development under way at a Victorian former barracks overlooking the Thames Estuary.

Would-be Hollywood actress and stalwart of the London party circuit Lady Victoria Hervey has put her modest one-bedroom first-floor flat in Knightsbridge on the market for £340,000 through Humberts. "But I'm open to offers as I hope to move to California by Christmas," she confidently declares. "I love the flat because it's quiet, just behind Harrods, near a cab rank and has a porter to take in flowers." What more could a young woman need?