Huge property with a price to match

The Life: It has 45 bedrooms and is rumoured to be adorned in millions of pounds of gold leaf. And the property, believed to be Britain's most expensive home, could be yours for £300 million.

The sprawling Knightsbridge mansion is said to be the most expensive home ever to go on the market in Britain with a value of £300 million. Dan Kitwood / Getty Images

It looks more like a hotel but this sprawling Knightsbridge mansion is Britain's most expensive home.

And it could be yours - if you have £300 million (Dh1.78 billion) to spare.

The seven storey, 45-bedroom house, which overlooks Hyde Park, is believed to have bulletproof windows and is said to be adorned in millions of pounds worth of gold leaf. It is also reported to have an industrial-sized kitchen, underground parking, a swimming pool and a number of lifts.

Once four separate flats, the property was converted into one 5,580 square metre residence in the 1980s by the late Lebanese prime minister, Rafiq Hariri.

After his assassination in a bomb attack in 2005, the property was passed on to his former business associate, Sultan bin Abdulaziz, the late crown prince of Saudi Arabia, who died last October.

Experts say the mansion is only comparable to two other non-royal residences in the British capital.

"Those are Bridgewater House next to St James's Palaceand Dudley House, in Mayfair," Oliver Hooper, from the estate agency Huntly Hooper, was quoted as saying in the British newspaper The Sun.

"As Bridgewater House and Dudley House are not for sale, I suspect this will be the only chance to get a house of this size in the area for a good number of years," Mr Hooper added.

The record price for a UK house is £140m, which an unidentified Russian buyer paid for Park Place, a 300-year-old home at the banks of the Thames near Henley.

The London property on the market in Knightsbridge is being "discreetly" offered to a select group of wealthy people, according to reports.

But green fingered house hunters need not seek a viewing, according to Peter Wetherell, the founder of Wetherell, a leading Mayfair estate agent.

He told The Telegraph newspaper the property was unique but does not have a garden - proof even house hunters with a £300m budget cannot have it all.