An historic office building built in 1893 in the port city of Southampton has been sold for £1.25m by property consultancy Vail Williams on behalf of Diamond Property Holdings.
Canute Chambers was once the local office of White Star Line, employing the crew on the Titanic, which sank 400 miles off the Newfoundland coastline in Canada on her maiden voyage.
Crowds gathered outside the premises upon hearing the terrible news, with the loss of more than 1,500 passengers and crew; more than 500 crew were from Southampton alone.
A list of survivors from the tragedy on 15 April 1912 was posted on blackboards outside, with families frantically searching for the names of loved ones.
Tim Poynting, a Property Asset Management partner for Vail Williams in the Solent region, handled the sale, having been involved in the management of Canute Chambers since client Diamond Property Holdings acquired the office in Ocean Way in 1998.
He said: “After having managed this for the same property asset management client for 27 years, and being mindful of our client’s property strategy, we were able to identify an opportunity to sell the property for £1.25m.”
Tim added: “Canute Chambers will always be associated with the story of RMS Titanic, the largest ocean liner in service at the time, and there are hundreds of Sotonians at the time who lost breadwinners in the sinking, causing desperate times for family dependents before the First World War brought further heartache locally just two years later.
Keith Diamond of Diamond Property Holdings commented “Whilst I was sorry to see the property go after owning it for such a long time, the timing and opportunity aligned with the strategy I had developed with Tim Poynting of Vail Williams and I am grateful to Tim and his property asset management colleagues for their work in achieving this outcome”.
