'Headless man' house sale

It is possibly one of the most notorious addresses in London. The house where a beautiful young duchess was caught on camera by her husband - in flagrante in the bathroom with her high-profile lover - is up for sale for £2.8 million.

The new owner of 48 Upper Grosvenor Street will be buying not only an elegant (if somewhat run-down) Mayfair townhouse, but a property with a scandalous history.

Margaret, the Duchess of Argyll, was photographed performing a sex act on the 'headless man' - so-called because his head was not shown in the pictures.

The images, taken with a Polaroid camera hidden in a cupboard, were used by the Duke of Argyll to win a divorce in 1963 on the grounds of adultery.

The identity of the headless man was a mystery that riveted Sixties London.

Some believed he was Hollywood star Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Other suspects included: Duncan Sandys, Winston Churchill's son-in-law and a member of the Macmillan Cabinet; one-time transport minister Ernest Marples; and Baron Sigismund von Braun, the diplomat brother of German scientist Werner von Braun, inventor of the V2 rocket.

But the duke and duchess took the secret to their graves. The Georgian house has been put on the market after standing empty for more than nine years.

It is estimated that it needs £1.5million spent on restoration work, and it will cost another £1.5million to extend the 34-year lease.

English Heritage has imposed a protection order on the bathroom, so the new owner will have to keep it exactly as it was when the headless man knew it.

The duchess inherited the house from her father, a Scottish textiles millionaire. She sold it in 1978. In 1990 it passed to its present owner, an Indian fashion tycoon.

In 1995 the last occupier moved out. Since then, however, the Grade II-listed building has stood empty. Efforts to sell it, in 1993 for £2 million and in 2000 for £3million, failed.