Fittingly for a minister on his second cabinet comeback, one title is not enough for Peter Mandelson.

Most peers opt for just one “territorial appellation” – the town or village that appears on the letters patent signed by the Queen – but Mandelson wants two.

The new business secretary will sit in the Lords as Baron Mandelson of Foy in the county of Herefordshire and Hartlepool in the county of Durham.

Hartlepool was the constituency he represented for a dozen years until he became a European commissioner in 2004.

Foy, a hamlet near Ross-on-Wye, has an older significance. Mandelson bought a cottage in the village on the Welsh borders for £30,000 in the mid1980s as a weekend bolt hole.

For a politician whose career has been defined by his climb up the property ladder – it was his desire to own a house in Notting Hill that led to his first cabinet resignation in 1998 – this semidetached country home was a modest first rung.

However, the property plays a walk-on part in new Labour folklore. It is said that Mandelson, then Labour’s director of communications, came up with the party’s red rose logo after being inspired by the shrubs in his garden.

Mandelson may still be known in Westminster as the “prince of darkness” but in Foy, locals remember him fondly.

Jim Williams, 86, who sold the property to Mandelson, still lives in the village. “It seemed that Peter had two very different faces and we in Foy saw the better side,” he said. “He was always a very nice, friendly and approachable person who was always willing to stop and have a chat.”

Mandelson sold the property when he became an MP in 1992 for £70,000. An aide said: “He has always been attached to the area.”

He then bought a house in Hartlepool and a flat in Clerkenwell, central London, before his later move to Notting Hill, helped by a secret £373,000 loan from Geoffrey Robinson.

The minister – who will officially be known as plain Lord Mandelson – now occupies an even grander £2.4m house in Primrose Hill, north London.

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