As Freddie Mercury’s collection goes to auction, a look at where the Queen star used to live in Kensington

Following the announcement of Sotheby’s coronation sale where they auctioned items to celebrate the soon-to-be crowned King Charles, the auction house is paying tribute to ‘Queen’ in the form of lead singer Freddie Mercury.

Throughout his lifetime, Freddie Mercury, who passed away following a battle with AIDS over three decades ago, compiled a collection of ‘splendid things’ such as costumes and paintings and left them all in the possession of his good friend Mary Austin after he died in 1991.

Now, some 1500 items have been given to Sotheby’s by Mary Austin to auction off; including Freddie’s handwritten lyrics for Queen’s greatest anthems We Are The Champions and Killer Queen, which are expected to sell for £200,000 - £300,000.

The difficult decision to put the majority of Freddie’s collection up for auction, keeping behind some personal pictures of Mary and Mercury, was made by Mary who needed to put ‘her affairs in order’ and ‘close this very special chapter’ at the age of 71.

Mary explained to the BBC that ‘the collection takes you deeper within the individual and the man I knew…you see the spectrum of his taste,’ after finding the array of memorabilia in Freddie’s Kensington home, that was also passed over to Mary.

Freddie first met Mary when she was 19-years-old and went out with Queen’s guitarist Brian May in 1970. The pair got close and ended up moving in together, with Mary taking care of the star when he became weak from his AIDS related sickness.

Since Freddie’s passing, Mary has not often spoken publicly about the former Queen singer and her friend, but still feels his immense presence as she resides in his Kensington home, whose décor has remained almost the exact same as when Freddie lived there.

Located at Logan Place in Kensington, Garden Lodge has quite the history with previous residents such as the painter Cecil Rae and Sotheby’s chairman Peter Wilson once calling it home before Freddie Mercury moved in in 1980.

Freddie originally purchased the hidden home for £500,000 in cash and filled it with ‘exquisite clutter’ including antique furniture, multiple prints and paintings as he wanted to ‘lead the Victorian life’.

Compared to the dark Georgian exterior, Freddie flipped the inside of the home to have a mirror-lined dressing room, an iridescent buttercup-yellow dining room and a commissioned marble bar to complement his larger than life persona.

The wall surrounding the Kensington home was often covered in graffiti and laden with flowers and notes following Freddie’s death as fans paid tribute to the musical icon, however Mary worked to keep the area tidy.

Mary will be donating some of the expected £6 million raised from the auction containing other objects like Freddie’s bedside telephone, moustache comb and rhinestone crown and cloak, to charity after they go on display this summer.