Paris Hilton's opium den London pad?
Paris Hilton is apparently looking to buy a former brothel and opium den in the east end of London.
The hotel heiress - who is currently in town filming for her new show Paris Hilton: My New British Best Friend - is looking to buy a holiday home in London, the Daily Star reports, and has put in an offer for the £850,000 former Victorian gin palace after falling in love with the building.
Paris, 27, is quoted as saying: "It's just beautiful. It doesn't have regular rooms but is more like a maze.
"It used to be an opium den and still has iron joists where pirates and thieves were shackled to the wall."
The building, just off Commercial Road with a view of the Gherkin, was known as Ratcliffe Hive, after the Ratcliffe Highway murderers hid there among the ladies of the night in the 19th Century.
A source said: "It has been a Chinese restaurant, a gin palace, an opium den and in the 19th Century it was a brothel.
"Metal joists where clients were manacled to the wall for their own pleasure have been sympathetically restored so the juicy past of the place isn't lost.
"It's thought that sailors, pirates and vagabonds made the short journey from the Thames to smoke opium and indulge in their wildest fantasies after months at sea.
"Paris really appreciated the quirkiness of the place - and the knockdown price for such a unique building - and immediately put in an offer."
