Former home of royal portrait artist for sale: Grade II-listed Kentish cottage listed for £925k once belonged to painter Prince Charles called "the fastest brush"

Pretty as a picture, Bourne Mill Cottage in Tonbridge, Kent, is the former home of royal portrait artist Bernard Hailstone, who died in 1987.

The artist worked so quickly that Prince Charles once nicknamed him “the fastest brush”. His sitters included Sir Winston Churchill, Hailstone having painted the last commissioned portrait of him in 1955, the year Churchill resigned as prime minister.

Hailstone’s son, Donovan, praised his father’s down-to-earth nature and revealed that he was on such comfortable terms with the royals that the Queen once asked him to adjust a TV aerial so she could watch the horse racing while she sat for him at Buckingham Palace.

Hailstone’s three-bedroom Georgian cottage was both his sanctuary and his studio. Tucked away in lovely gardens that feature a magnificent magnolia tree, the Grade II-listed home is on Humberts’ books for £925,000.