To buy cheap art, buy architecture

Of the 375,000 listed buildings in England only 2.5 per cent are Grade I. Half are churches; many are otherwise uninhabitable, such as Nelson’s Column or the Royal Opera House. There are perhaps only 2,500 Grade I listed buildings in England in which you can feasibly live: these include Buckingham Palace and the Sutherland gaff.

Eighteen years ago, when we had twins and decided to move out of London, my wife discovered a four-bedroom apartment in the roof of a Robert Adam house a mile outside the M25. To our astonishment, it was barely more expensive than ordinary housing of similar size nearby. I recently asked my neighbour, an economist, what premium we pay for the house’s architectural quality. ‘Between 0 and 5 per cent,’ he estimated.

What’s going on? Whereas a Picasso costs perhaps 100,000 times more than a same-size picture bought on the Bayswater Road, an Adam flat costs scarcely more than a boring, similar-sized flat nearby.