This Christmas, as Claudia Winkleman fronts her final Strictly Come Dancing festive special and ushers in a new season of The Traitors, her half-sister Sophie Winkleman will grace our screens too.
Best known as Peep Show’s Big Suze, Sophie is set to reunite with former castmates — including David Mitchell and Olivia Colman — for The Great Peep Show Christmas Bake Off, swapping comedy for festive jumpers and flour-dusted worktops.
Though they share a surname and a formidable academic pedigree — both attended the City of London School for Girls before going on to Cambridge University — the sisters’ lives, and the homes that have shaped them, have followed distinctly different paths.
Raised in Hampstead, Claudia is the daughter of journalist Eve Pollard and publisher Barry Winkleman. After her parents divorced when she was three, Barry went on to marry author Cindy Black, bringing Sophie up in Primrose Hill.
Today, the Winkleman sisters are united by family and festive television schedules, but their respective property journeys — from central London townhouses to countryside homes and Californian chapters — tell a different story.
Claudia Winkleman’s London homes
Claudia will be present the Strictly Christmas special with Tess Daly
Guy Levy/BBC/PA Wire
Claudia Winkleman is all about central London living and has called Bayswater home since 2006. She purchased the home with her husband, film producer Kris Thykier, for £3.25 million.
That may seem like an eye-watering amount but it was a smart move as the property is now valued at around £7 million.
Winkleman and her husband have raised their three children in the Grade II-listed freehold townhouse close to Marble Arch and Hyde Park.
Speaking of the location, she told The Standard in a My London interview: “I can leave my house at 4am and buy a kebab, rent a movie and get some shampoo. I love my shower, my bread bin and our tortoise, Yoshi.”
Claudia lives close to Hyde Park
Daniel Lynch
Much like her fashion sense, Winkleman’s home seems neither ostentatious nor overly styled despite the property’s rather grand setting. Instead, it feels lived-in and chic.
A self-confessed hoarder, Winkleman has previously said that whilst she might want a minimalist white house she also needs a junk area for “the stuff that actually isn’t junk” such as her extraordinary quantity of rattan bowls and dark wood furniture that dates back to her student days.
Spread across five floors, the house has high ceilings, tall windows and period proportions that make it enviably spacious.
Inside, Winkleman’s interiors favour neutral palettes and classic detailing with pops of colour.
On the rare occasions she has lifted the curtain on family life, glimpses show off-white wood panelling and sculpted marble in the bathroom, alongside thoughtfully curated bookshelves.
She has also revealed that she sleeps on a Vispring bed and insists that a very large throw is a must, with one large cushion rather than several scatter cushions for extra comfort.
Prior to the townhouse, Winkleman and Thykier lived in a much more modest but equally loved apartment together for six years. They moved in shortly after marrying at Marylebone Town Hall in 2000.
Speaking of the flat in a column for The Independent in 2006, Winkleman said: “When I say we bought it together, I mean he paid for it and I gave him some coins from the bottom of my bag…We chose the colour of the walls, the carpet and the soap dishes. We skipped round John Lewis discussing the pros and cons of each salt and pepper shaker.”
Claudia is also reported to have a bolthole in the Cotswolds
PA Archive
Their long-term countryside rental is worth an estimated £3 millon and gives the family an escape when TV schedules allow.
Described as an historic manor house, it counts the Beckhams, Kate Winslett and Hugh Grant as neighbours.
Though she has not shared pictures of the interiors, her Traitors outfits have shown that Claudia loves a bit of tartan and tweed so we can only imagine that her cosy Cotswolds escape is decked out with Johnstons of Elgin.
Sophie Winkleman: from West Hollywood to Battersea
Sophie Winkleman (far right) with her Great Peepshow Christmas Bakeoff opponents
Channel 4
Half-sister Sophie Winkleman’s property story is quite different.
Despite being raised in Primrose Hill, she claims she is “not posh” and grew up in the area when it was “vegetarian, hippy…a bit shabby and cosy – there was a shop called Sesame which I think only sold lentils,” she told Cambridge’s Varsity newspaper.
She lived in Trinity Hall when she studied English Literature at the University.
After a successful acting career that included Peep Show, Sophie married Lord Frederick Windsor (aka Freddie Windsor) in 2009 at Hampton Court Palace, joining the extended British Royal Family.
Sophie with her husband, Lord Frederick Windsor
Dave Benett
Just days after their wedding, Sophie and Freddie, the only son of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, made an unexpected move — not to a country estate or royal-adjacent London address, but to Los Angeles, because Sophie had secured a role on the US comedy Two and a Half Men.
Based in West Hollywood, the couple built a life far removed from their London lifestyle, enjoying the freedoms of California living.
She has since described the home they left behind as one they “utterly loved”, a place that offered both royal anonymity and space to grow as a young family.
LA was home for seven years until the couple decided to return to the UK before their eldest daughter started school.
After scouting out various locations they settled on Battersea.
Sophie chose the Battersea Park location for its accessibility to green space and local schools. However, she has flagged that as much as she loves the area she does wish it was closer to Tube stations.
Her London interiors are refined, with traditional fireplaces, period features and plenty of space to host the couple’s close friends who include Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse, with whom Winkleman starred in the sketch show Harry & Paul; actress Rachael Stirling and her husband, Elbow frontman Guy Garvey; and Jamie Oliver, who she met at Soho House in Los Angeles and who is daughter Isabella’s godfather.