Mystery local buyer hopes to restore Thames site to the very model of its Gilbert and Sullivan days
A 13-bedroom Victorian mansion perched on a private island in the River Thames that was built for Gilbert and Sullivan opera impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte has been sold to a mystery British buyer for just over £3m.
D’Oyly Carte Island, which was known as Folly Eyot until D’Oyly Carte bought it in 1890, has long intrigued local residents fascinated by the abandoned Grade II-listed mansion which is only accessible by a narrow footbridge from the south bank of the Thames near Weybridge. Until the footbridge was installed in 1964, the only way to access the island was to pull oneself across on a chain ferry.
