Squatters set up home in Duke of Westminster's £30million Park Lane mansions

A couple of blindingly obvious clues might have signalled that all was not well yesterday at two of the most prestigious addresses in Britain.



There were those shiny new locks, gleaming in the sunlight against the dusty black paintwork of adjacent front doors.



Then there was the chap playing a busker-style violin solo on the second-floor balcony of number 95 Park Lane, shielded from the intermittent rain by a scruffy leather coat and a tasselled woolly hat.



Luxury: Properties at 94 and 95 Park Lane occupied by squatters

Not forgetting the brown and white dog surveying magnificent views over most of Hyde Park, poking his wet nose out of a window at number 94 and looking for all the world as if he owned the place. Which, in a sense, he did.



These were some of the squatters who struck it rich to occupy the two most expensive free houses in the land.



And quite how they got away with living here unnoticed for the last two months is a question that all property owners would do well to consider.



The band of 20 or 30 hippies, activists, freeloaders and stragglers took over the £30million pair of empty mansions before Christmas.



The high life: 94 Park Lane and 95, which is taller than surrounding buildings

Free house: A squatter and dog enter number 95

Since then there have been unfamiliar comings and goings at the six-storey buildings, accompanied by the strumming of guitars, an occasional flute - and the unmistakable sound of the fiddle.

The properties are owned by the billionaire Duke of Westminster, one of Britain's richest men and its biggest landowner.



Once home to lords, politicians and notables, they are leased to property companies by his Grosvenor Estates and have previously been used as offices.



Neighbours include Madonna. Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed used a flat down the road as a secret love nest.



V-ery nice place to live: A squatter inside Number 94 Park Lane today

Park life: 20 freeloaders - aged between 21 and 45 - took over the townhouses at numbers 94 and 95 Park Lane after they were left empty for a few weeks

One of the squatters told me yesterday it was discovered the adjoining houses had been empty for up to two years and they simply pushed the doors open to move in.

Note the wording. If they were found responsible for causing any damage by breaking in, they could have been charged with a criminal offence.



Once in full-time occupation, word of mouth meant the kind of people who prefer to live rent-free in the capital's most exclusive addresses soon came to join them.



They set up an 'art collective' and began jamming long into the night.



Yesterday it was suggested that anyone with a heater was likely to be made welcome - not entirely true.



Duke of Westminster: Thought to own the properties in Park Lane

Equipped with an oil-filled electric radiator and a friendly smile, I asked one of the emerging minstrels if I could exchange it for shelter. 'Are you a journalist?' he asked.

'Yes,' I replied, adding that the heater was new, two kilowatts, with a timer.



'Can't let you in. It's a democracy and there's no way the others would agree.' Talking to some of 'the others' confirmed that the kilowatt output of the National Grid would not be enough to allow the Mail across the threshold.



But peeking through the letterboxes and windows, and chatting to less hostile 'residents', at least gives a taste of life inside.



Each house has 12 rooms and a floor space of 12,000 sqft. It's a mixture of squalor and fading elegance, with plastic sheeting for curtains and mattresses on the bare floorboards.



Graffiti adorns one wall and many of the fixtures that would normally grace the mostly Georgian architecture seem to have vanished.



Suddenly a young woman comes down the stairs carrying a loo roll. Apparently the plumbing and waste facilities leave a little to be desired.



'It's not nearly as good as my last squat,' says the violinist, 24. He was evicted from his previous address and the squatters took him in.



'They've been good to me. But it's not much inside. There's no central heating or showers.'



Yesterday the Grosvenor (Mayfair) Estate was making legal moves towards reclaiming the property - but it is likely to take some time. There is no law against squatting.



However, few squatters take advantage of the bright lights.



One, in his 20s, called Zen, says evenings are spent 'being mellow', making art and music. There's no TV, and the only electrical devices are heaters.



In the background, a young man with tattoos peeks out of the door and slams it shut.

Someone gives a Vsign from a ground-floor window. The dog takes another free sniff of Hyde Park air.



Where next, I ask one resident? 'Somewhere disgustingly rich,' he muses.

'Somewhere that will make a statement. Somewhere with a bathroom.'







