EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Piers de Laszlo's battle with cancer forces him to abandon his dream of a haven for fellow artists in Portugal

His mother envisaged years of bliss married to her war-hero husband, Group Captain Peter Townsend, only for the dream to fall foul of Townsend’s duties as equerry to George VI – and the proximity of the Monarch’s vivacious younger daughter, Princess Margaret.

Now Piers de Laszlo – Rosemary Townsend’s only son by her second marriage – is coming to terms with a heartbreaking loss of his own following a debilitating battle with cancer.

To his intense regret, it’s forced him to abandon his hopes of establishing a haven for fellow artists, and for writers, in a Portuguese fishing town, Olhao, where, for several years, he’s been buying up enchanting old houses which would otherwise have been knocked down or subjected to formulaic modernisation.

‘I hoped to have an art school,’ Piers, 65, tells me. He’s the grandson of society portraitist, Philip de Laszlo, who painted almost all the crowned heads of Europe as well as Edward VII and a very young Princess Elizabeth.

‘The idea was to call it The Crumbling Foundation,’ adds de Laszlo, who rescued 14 houses in various states of ruination and inspired others – including the Earl of St Germans’s widow, Jacquetta – to emulate him.

Piers de Laszlo’s battle with cancer has forced him to abandon his hopes of establishing a haven for fellow artists, and for writers, in a Portuguese fishing town, Olhao (pictured)

For several years, he’s been buying up enchanting old houses in Olhao (pictured) which would otherwise have been knocked down or subjected to formulaic modernisation

He envisaged the emergence of an artistic community. Pictured are people relaxing in terraces in Olhao, Algarve, Portugal

His hope was to make the houses habitable but otherwise leave them unchanged. ‘Each is unique. The insides are very much part of why they’re so marvellous. That’s where the vast majority of the architecture and design and the domestic story has gone,’ explains de Laszlo, adding that developers invariably preserve facades ‘but knock down everything inside’ and create ‘sterile, open plan luxury’.

He envisaged the emergence of an artistic community – with perhaps some of the uninhibited spirit that he encountered in the 1970s, when, soon after leaving Harrow, he went to Surrendell Farm in Wiltshire, whose owner, the Earl of Bessborough’s sister, Sarah Ponsonby, created a commune which attracted Dame Helen Mirren and her then boyfriend, Prince George Galitzine, as well as Roddy Llewellyn, who was periodically visited by his then lover, Princess Margaret.

With his dream over, de Laszlo hopes to find new owners for the houses ‘who really like them’. If they do, he’ll treat them to a bonus, he tells me: ‘I’ll paint their portrait when they move in.’

Harry Styles chills with Taylor! 

If things were hotting up between Harry Styles and actress Taylor Russell, he has certainly found a way to make them cool off.

The pop superstar, 29, plunged into the chilly waters of Hampstead Heath ponds in North London on Boxing Day with the Canadian, also 29.

Both shunned wetsuits, with the As It Was singer showing off his strapping physique in a pair of swimming trunks, while Russell wore a black unitard. 

But they did both sport woolly hats plus swimming socks and gloves for their dip in the water, which was a rather bracing 8c. Brrr…

Harry Styles showed off his ripped physique as he enjoyed a chilly dip in the Hampstead Heath swimming ponds with his girlfriend Taylor Russell, in a snap shared by a fan on Instagram

Harry and Taylor (pictured earlier this month) were first romantically linked after they were spotted enjoying an art gallery date in London in June

Sheffield clan ride out their hangovers… 

Having once declared that it is ‘totally OK for a man to wear eyeliner at dinner’, baronet’s heir Robert Sheffield betrays no sign of losing his sense of adventure.

‘Maybe my favourite day ooot hunting ever on Boxing Day,’ he captions this snap of him with half-sister Emily Sheffield, former deputy editor of Vogue. ‘We galloped, jumped and laughed our way out of a hangover,’ adds Robert, 39.

Perhaps he’ll lure his half-sister, Samantha, and her husband, Lord (David) Cameron, back into the saddle? The Foreign Secretary has been rather shy of field sports in recent years, though in 2019 he was said to have shot a stag — and promptly named it ‘Boris’.

Robert Sheffield shared a snap of him with half-sister Emily Sheffield, former deputy editor of Vogue, saying: ‘Maybe my favourite day ooot hunting ever on Boxing Day. We galloped, jumped and laughed our way out of a hangover’

Samantha Cameron, David Cameron and Emily Sheffield at the Victoria & Albert Museum’s Summer Party in June 2018

First it was bats, now a bent roof threatens to scupper Game Of Thrones stars Kit Harington and Rose Leslie‘s plans to convert a barn at their Suffolk farmhouse. 

The couple want to build a huge rooflight along the top of the bowed outbuilding at their 15th-century retreat. But conservationists fear it will harm the quirky character of the Grade II listed Tudor home. Now the council has called for new plans. 

It said: ‘The existing roof structure of the barn is very uneven and I am concerned about the implementation of this fenestration — would it be necessary to flatten this for installation, removing its character?’

Game of Thrones star Kit Harington and wife Rose Leslie pictured in London in June 2019

Game of Thrones stars Kit Harington and Rose Leslie’s £1.75m country property in Suffolk

Clare’s doggy dream home 

Clare Balding loved her genteel corner of West London so much that she and fellow broadcaster Alice Arnold were married at the local stately home, Chiswick House.

But now they’re quitting the capital for the countryside, because they are so worried about their pets being stolen or killed on the busy roads.

‘We’ve bought a new house and we are going to knock it down and build, so that we have a protected space around it where the doors can be open,’ says Balding, who longs to replace her late Tibetan terrier Archie.

‘Consequently, either puppy or new young dog or whatever can get out all the time and the cats won’t get either run over or kidnapped. We are changing our whole life to suit the dog that will come in.’

Clare Balding loved her genteel corner of West London so much that she and fellow broadcaster Alice Arnold were married at the local stately home, Chiswick House. The couple are pictured outside Chiswick House at their wedding reception in September 2006

Damien Hirst’s heavily pregnant girlfriend, Sophie Cannell, has taken to feeding their pet chihuahua from her navel (pictured)

Strange goings-on in the household of Damien Hirst, whose heavily pregnant girlfriend, Sophie Cannell, has taken to feeding their pet chihuahua from her navel.

Does the pampered pooch not know that if it doesn’t behave, it could end up like one of Hirst’s art works, such as the shark pickled in formaldehyde or the chopped-up cow?

Former ballerina Cannell, 29, is expecting her first child with Hirst, who is 29 years her senior. She lives with the former enfant terrible of the art world at his £36million, 14-bedroom home in Regent’s Park, London.