Bury the Canaletto, now
I’m not on the guest list for the Duke of Westminster’s wedding, but I wish him luck anyway. Mind you, the young seventh duke – Hughie to his friends – hardly needs more luck than has already come his way in the form of the £10 billion Grosvenor property empire in London and elsewhere. When the playboy second duke known as ‘Bend’Or’ died in 1953, Pimlico had to be sold to pay record death duties. But the Grosvenor family has taken a firmer grip on tax planning since then, their fortune multiplying despite the dukedom passing through three cousins to reach the father of today’s incumbent, who inherited via reportedly
